IN THE FOREIGN 
 LEGION 
 
IN THE FOREIGN 
 LEGION 
 
 BY 
 
 ERWIN ROSEN 
 
 LONDON 
 DUCKWORTH & CO. 
 
 HENRIETTA ST. COVENT GARDEN 
 
 1910 
 

 All rights reserved 
 
 Printed by BALLANTVNE & Co. LIMITED 
 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London 
 
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 col- 
 lege halls. Parental objections he disregarded. 
 Things came to a climax. And the very next 
 " Schnelldampfer " had amongst its passengers 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 passage 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 Associated 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 
 
 V 
 
 273256 
 
vi PROLOGUE 
 
 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 happi- 
 ness was lost. ... 
 
 The man at any rate recognised his loss ; he re- 
 cognised that life was no longer worth living. A 
 dull feeling of hopelessness came over him. Arid 
 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 
 
PROLOGUE vii 
 
 and marched, slept, ate, and did what I was 
 ordered ; suffered the most awful hardships 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 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 LEGIONNAIRE ! 
 
 PACK 
 
 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 ^ell : " Officier Allemand " : My new 
 comrade? ant-colonel : A night of tears 1 
 
 .PTER II 
 , AFRIQUE 
 
 Transport of recruits on the railway : What our ticket 
 did for us and France : The patriotic conductor : 
 Marseilles : The gate of the French Colonies : The 
 Colonial hotel : A study in blue and yellow : On the 
 Mediterranean : The ship'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 16 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 LEGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889 
 
 French and American bugle-calls : Southward to the 
 city of the Foreign Legion : Sidi-bel-Abbes : The 
 
x CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 sergeant is not pleased : A final fight with pride : 
 The jokes of the Legion : The wise negro : Bugler 
 Smith : I help a legionnaire to desert : The Eleventh 
 Company : How clothes are sold in the Legion : 
 Number 17889 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE FOREIGN LEGION'S BARRACKS 
 
 In the company's storeroom : Mr. Smith American, 
 legionnaire, philosopher : The Legion's neatness : 
 The favourite substantive of the Foreign Legion : 
 What the commander of the Old Guard said at 
 Waterloo : Old and young legionnaires : The canteen : 
 Madame la Cantiniere : The regimental feast : Strange 
 men and strange things : The skull : The prisoners' 
 march : The wealth of Monsieur Rassedin, legion- 
 naire : " R habilitation " : The Koran chapter of the 
 Stallions 48 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MILITARY VALUE OF THE FOREIGN 
 REGIMENTS 
 
 A day's work as a recruit : Allez, hurry up ! : The 
 Legion's etiquette : A morning's run : The "cercle 
 d'enfer " and the lack of soap : The main object of the 
 Legion's training : Splendid marchers : Independent 
 soldiers : Forty kilometres a day : Uniform, accoutre- 
 ments, baggage, victualling : The training of the 
 legionnaire in detail : The legionnaire as a practical 
 man : Specialties of the Legion : Programme for a 
 week in the Legion : The legionnaire as a labourer 77 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 "THE LEGION GETS NO PAY" 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The money troubles of the Legion : Five centimes 
 wages : The cheapest soldiers of the world : Letters 
 from the Legion : The science of " decorating " : The 
 industries of the legionnaires : What the bugler did 
 for a living : The man with the biscuits : A thief in 
 the night : Summary lynch law : Herr von Rader 
 and la Cantiniere : "The Legion works the Legion 
 gets no pay!" 105 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE CITY OF THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 The daily exodus to town : Ben Mansur's coffee : The 
 Ghetto : The citizens of Sidi-bel- Abbes and the legion- 
 naires : How the Legion squared accounts with the 
 civilians : A forbidden part of the town : Primitive 
 vice : A dance of a night : The gardens : The last 
 resting-place of the Legion's dead 117 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A HUNDRED THOUSAND HEROES A HUNDRED 
 THOUSAND VICTIMS 
 
 The hall of honour : A collection of ruined talents : 
 The battle of Camaron : A skeleton outline of the 
 Legion's history : A hundred thousand victims : A 
 psychological puzzle : True heroes : How they are 
 rewarded : The chances of promotion : The pension 
 system of the Foreign Legion 1 35 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 " MARCH OR DIE ! " 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Legion's war-cry : A night alarm : On the march : 
 The counting of the milestones : Under canvas : The 
 brutality of the marches : The legionnaire and the 
 staff doctor : My fight for an opiate : The " marching 
 pig" : The psychology of the marches : Excited 
 nerves : The song of imprecations 155 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THE MADNESS OF THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 An unpleasant occurrence : The last three coppers : 
 The Roumanian Jew from Berlin : Monsieur Via'isse : 
 The Legion's atmosphere : The Cafard demoniacs : 
 Bismarck's double : Kriigerle's whim : The madness 
 of Legionnaire Bauer : Brutal humour : A tragedy 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE DESERTERS 
 
 The Odyssey of going on pump : Death in the desert : 
 The Legion's deserters : A disastrous flight in a motor- 
 car : The tragic fate of an Austrian engineer : In 
 the Ghetto of Sidi-bel-Abbes : The business part of 
 desertion : Oran and Algiers : The Consulate as a 
 trap : The financial side of desertion : One hundred 
 kilometres of suffering : Hamburg steamers : Self- 
 mutilation : Shamming : In the Suez Canal : Morocco, 
 the wonder-land. 197 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The return of the poumpistes : The scale of punish- 
 ments in the Legion : Of spiteful non-commissioned 
 officers : The Legion's axiom : Sad history of Little 
 Jean : The punishment machine : Lost years : A 
 legionnaire's earnings in five years francs, 127.75 : 
 The prisons in the Foreign Legion : Pestilential 
 atmosphere : Human sardines : The general cells : 
 Life in the prison : On sentry duty among the 
 prisoners 226 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 SOME TYPES OF VICE 
 
 A variety of human' vices : The red wine of Algeria : 
 
 Shum-Shura : If there were no wine 248 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MY ESCAPE 
 
 In the Arab prison : The letter : Days of suffering : 
 Flight ! : The greedy Credit Lyonnais " : Haggling 
 in the Ghetto : The palm grove as a dressing-room : 
 On the railway track : Arab policemen : Horrible 
 minutes : Travelling to Oran : Small preparations : 
 On the steamer St. Augustine : Marseilles : Ventimiglia : 
 Free 255 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 J'ACCUSE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Two years after : Shadows of the past : My vision : 
 Public opinion and the Foreign Legion : The political 
 aspect of the Foreign Legion : The moralist's point of 
 view : The " Legion question " in a nutshell : A 
 question the civilised world should have answered 
 long ago : Quousque tandem . . . ? 274 
 
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 pre- 
 ferred 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 shining 
 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 
 
2 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 spoke to me ; a woman's tears, the whispering of 
 love, a mother's sorrow. And some devil was per- 
 petually 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 
 shells 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 him- 
 self almost double in French fashion. 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 worl< 
 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 oi 
 them stood flat tables packed with things for sale, 
 taking up most of the pavement. Here was a 
 chance for a thief, I thought, and laughed, marvel- 
 
LEGIONNAIRE 3 
 
 ling 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 glass, 
 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 assist 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 
 
4 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 terribly hard this first step was! I thought the 
 few words must choke me. 
 
 "Oh, la la ..." said the officer, quite con- 
 founded. 
 
 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 
 " Strangers " 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. 
 
 "Really not?" the lieutenant asked in a very 
 serious tone of voice. 
 
 " No, monsieur, absolutely nothing. I have been 
 told that for the Foreign Legion physical fitness is 
 the only thing required, and that the recruiting 
 officers cared less than nothing about the past lives 
 of their recruits." 
 
 "You're quite right," said the lieutenant; "I 
 asked in your own interest only. If you had special 
 military knowledge, for instance, your way in the 
 Legion could be made very easy for you." 
 
 Some time later I understood what he meant. 
 Now I answered that I had served in the army like 
 all Germans. 
 
 
LEGIONNAIRE 5 
 
 Meanwhile we had reached a row of small build- 
 ings. Into one of them the lieutenant went with 
 me, up a flight of steep, rather dirty stairs, into 
 a dingy little office. At our entrance a corporal 
 jumped up from his seat and saluted, and the 
 officer spoke to him in a low tone. Then my little 
 lieutenant left and the corporal turned to me. 
 
 " Eh, enter la Legion ? " he said. " Mais, mon- 
 sieur, you are not dressed like a man desiring to 
 gain bread by becoming legionnaire ! Votre 
 nom?" 
 
 I reflected for an instant whether I should give 
 my right name or not. I gave it, however. It 
 did not matter much. 
 
 " Eh, venez avec moi to the others. The medecin 
 major will be here in a minute." 
 
 So saying the corporal opened a door and gave me 
 a friendly push. I drew back almost frightened. The 
 atmosphere of the close little room was unspeakable. 
 It was foul with the smell of unwashed humanity, 
 sweat, dirt and old clothes. Long benches stood 
 against the wall and men sat there, candidates for the 
 Foreign Legion, waiting for the medical examina- 
 tion, waiting to know whether their bodies were still 
 worth five centimes daily pay. That is what a 
 legionnaire gets five centimes a day. One of the 
 men sat there naked, shivering in the chill October 
 air. It needed no doctor's eye to see that he was 
 half starved. His emaciated body told the story 
 clearly enough. Another folded his pants with 
 almost touching care, although they had been 
 patched so often that they were now tired of 
 
6 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 service and in a state of continuous strike. An 
 enormous tear in an important part had ruined 
 them hopelessly. These pants and that tear had 
 probably settled the question of the wearer's enlist- 
 ing in the Foreign Legion. 
 
 A third man, a strong boy, seemed very much 
 ashamed of having to undress. These poor men 
 considered nudity a vile and ugly thing, because, 
 in their life of poverty and hunger, they had for- 
 gotten the laws of cleanliness. They were ashamed, 
 and every move of theirs told it. There, in the 
 corner, one of the men was shoving his shoes 
 furtively as far as possible under the bench, that 
 the holes in them might not be seen, and another 
 made a small bundle of his tattered belongings, 
 thus defying inspection. 
 
 A dozen men were there. Some of them were 
 mere boys, with only a shadow of beard on their 
 faces ; youths with deep-set hungry eyes and deep 
 lines round their mouths ; men with hard, wrinkled 
 features telling the old story of drink very plainly. 
 Nobody dared to talk aloud. Occasional words 
 were spoken in a hushed undertone. The man 
 beside me said softly, the fear of refusal in his 
 eyes: 
 
 " I've got varicose veins. D'you think they'll 
 take me . . . ? " 
 
 My God, the Foreign Legion meant hope for this 
 man the hope of regular food! The daily five 
 centimes were for him wages well worth having ! 
 
 The atmosphere was loathsome. I stared at this 
 miserable crowd of hopeless men, at their filthy 
 
LEGIONNAIRE 7 
 
 things, at their hungry faces ; I felt like a criminal 
 in the dock. My clothes seemed a mockery. . . . 
 
 After what seemed an eternity of waiting the 
 officers came in. A fat surgeon, an assistant and 
 my lieutenant. I would have given something to 
 have asked this doctor why in all the world these 
 men could not be given a bath before examination. 
 . . . First the doctor pointed at me. 
 " Undress ! " 
 
 While I was undressing, the officers kept whisper- 
 ing together, very softly, but I could hear that 
 they were talking about me, and that the lieutenant 
 said something about " Officier Allemand." 
 
 I smiled as I listened. It was very funny to be 
 taken for a quondam German officer. I suppose 
 they took me for a deserter ; it certainly must have 
 been rather an unusual event to find a well-dressed 
 man enlisting in the Legion. 
 
 The well-dressed man felt annoyed at this 
 curiosity, this openly shown pity. It was absolute 
 torture to me. How very ridiculous it all was I 
 fumbled at my watch-chain, trying to take off the 
 little gold sovereign-case in order to open my 
 waistcoat I fumed at the stares of the officers who 
 should have been gentlemen. . . . The looks of 
 the doctor said plainly : 
 
 " Humph, the fellow actually wears fine under- 
 clothes ! " 
 
 Why should they stare at me ? Had I not the 
 same right as these other poor devils to go to per- 
 dition in my own way ? Why should they make 
 it so hard for me in particular ? Then I under- 
 
8 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 stood how human their curiosity was, and how 
 ridiculous my irritability. The first step was made. 
 I began slowly to understand what it meant to 
 enlist in the Foreign Legion as a last refuge. 
 
 I stood there naked before the medecin major, 
 who adjusted his eye-glass as if he had a good deal 
 of time to spare, and who took a long look at me. 
 I stared quietly back at him. You may look as 
 long as you wish, I thought, you fat, funny old 
 fellow with a snub nose. You surely aren't going 
 to complain of my physical condition. 
 
 " Bon," said the doctor. 
 
 A clerk wrote something in a book. This 
 finished the ceremony. The doctor did not bother 
 about such trifles as examining the lungs, heart or 
 eyes. He was for simplifying things. Monsieur 
 le major decided with a short look in each case, as 
 the other men took their turn. Three men were 
 refused. An old woman could have diagnosed their 
 condition at a glance they were cases for a hospital, 
 and their doing military service was absolutely out 
 of the question. The man with the varicose veins, 
 however, was at once accepted. Bon ! I could 
 see how happy he was over his good fortune, and I 
 envied him. The man had hope. . . . 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Before a small window in the wall we new 
 recruits waited, half an hour, an hour. At last the 
 window was opened and the corporal put out his head. 
 
 Snedr ! " he called. 
 
 Nobody answered. 
 
 " Snedr ! ! " he yelled, getting angry. 
 
LEGIONNAIRE 9 
 
 Still no reply. 
 
 Finally the lieutenant appeared beside the 
 corporal, and looked over his list. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " the man does not understand. 
 Schneider ! " 
 
 " Here ! " answered one of my new comrades 
 at once. 
 
 " Your name is Schneider ? " the lieutenant asked 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Very well, in French your name is pronounced 
 Snedr. Remember that ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Sign your name here." 
 
 The man signed. One after the other the new 
 recruits were called to the little window, and each 
 signed his name, without bothering to look at what 
 he signed. I came last this time. The lieutenant 
 gave me a sheet of hectographed paper, and I 
 glanced quickly over its contents. It was a formal 
 contract for five years' service in the Foreign Legion 
 between the Republic of France and the man who 
 was foolish enough to sign it. There were a great 
 many paragraphs and great stress was laid on the 
 fact that the " enlisting party " had no right upon 
 indemnification in case of sickness or disability, and 
 no claim upon pension until after fifteen years of 
 service. 
 
 " Have you any personal papers ? " the lieutenant 
 asked me suddenly. 
 
 I almost laughed in his face he was such a 
 picture of curiosity. In my German passport, 
 however, I was described as " editor," and I had a 
 
10 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 notion that this passport was much too good for 
 an occasion like this. While searching my port- 
 folio for " personal papers " I happened to find the 
 application form of a life insurance company, with 
 my name filled out. I gave this to the lieutenant 
 with a very serious countenance. It was good 
 enough for this. The officer looked at the thing 
 and seemed quite puzzled. 
 
 " Oh, that will do," he finally smiled, and gave 
 me the pen to sign. 
 
 1 signed. And under my name I wrote the 
 date : October 6, 1905. 
 
 " The date was unnecessary," said the lieutenant. 
 
 " Pardon me," I answered. " I wrote un- 
 thinkingly it's an important date for me." 
 
 " By God, you're right," said he. 
 
 In single file we were marched to the barracks. 
 One of the French soldiers who met us on the way 
 stopped, and threw up his hands in laughing 
 astonishment : 
 
 "Eh!" 
 
 And then, making a wry face, he yelled, in a 
 coarse 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, 
 
LEGIONNAIRE 11 
 
 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 Miiller. 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 Miiller said with a condescending smile. " A 
 good one, too. Strictly first class. 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 constitution. 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 ? " 
 
12 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Then Herr von Rader fished a number of mys- 
 terious little boxes out of innumerable pockets, in- 
 spected 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 coon isn't going to waste 
 his resources on French Africa. Oh no ! Some 
 fine day I'll give the niggers 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 
 kummel 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. 
 
LEGIONNAIRE 13 
 
 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 Her 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. 
 
14 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " 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 con- 
 sider 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 
 1 lay awake. The events of my life passed before 
 me in mad flight. I was once more a boy at 
 
LEGIONNAIRE 15 
 
 college ; I saw my father standing by the dock at 
 Bremerhaven and heard his last good-bye and my 
 motherVcrying. . . . 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 : Mar- 
 seilles : The gate of the French Colonies : The Colonial 
 hotel : A study in blue and yellow : On the Mediter- 
 ranean : The ship's cook : The story of the Royal 
 Prince of Prussia at Saida : Oran : Wine and legion- 
 naires : How the deserter reached Spain and why he 
 returned 
 
 NEXT morning we assembled 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 passers-by wonder, 
 surprise, or, worse still, compassion. 
 
 The corporal took us to the Marseilles 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 
 
 16 
 
L'AFRIQUE 17 
 
 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 Marseilles. He therefore kept 
 a sharp look-out occupying a good strategic posi- 
 tion 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 passed 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 Marseilles, we saw 
 our patriotic conductor run along the platform, 
 signalling excitedly to a sergeant at the gate. 
 
 "I've got them 1 Here they are ! " was the 
 meaning of this human semaphore. 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 side- 
 walk 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 
 
18 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Marseilles 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. Ship lay by 
 ship. Elegant steam yachts were moored alongside 
 of unkempt tramp -steamers, whose neglected ap- 
 pearance 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 shirts of two exclusive colours : a screaming 
 red and a howling blue. Sailing-ships 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 tremen- 
 dous amount of yelling and screaming. Surely the 
 combined noises of fifteen large cities cannot equal 
 the hellish babel of Marseilles' water-front. 
 
 We had to walk more than an hour before we 
 reached the little fort, once the nucleus of 
 Marseilles' harbour defence, whose sole purpose 
 now is that of a gate through which to pass 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 
 
L'AFRIQUE 19 
 
 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 mass the soldiers of the African corps who 
 were waiting for the next troopship. Spahis and 
 Zouaves and Tirailleurs, who crowded round us 
 like a swarm of bees. 
 
 " Oh, la la, les bleus pour la Le'gion ! " (Here are 
 the blues for the Legion.) 
 
 " Why are we called blues ? " I asked a Spahi 
 corporal who happened to stand near me. 
 
 " Blues ? " he said. " Oh, well, that means 
 recruits. Officially recruits are called 'les jeunes 
 soldats,' young soldiers, but in the army we say 
 the blues." 
 
 " Wonder what it means," I said. 
 
 The corporal lit a new cigarette and explained : 
 " The origin of the name is uncertain. My captain 
 told me once that it represented an old army 
 tradition from Napoleonic times. The soldiers of 
 Napoleon wore very stiff cravats to give shape to 
 the high collars of their uniforms. These cravats 
 are said to have been torture. They held the head 
 like a vice, and it took a long time to get used 
 to them. The recruits actually got blue in the 
 face with these cravats round their necks, to the 
 immense amusement of the old soldiers, who 
 made fun of them : Aha, the blues look at the 
 blues ! " 
 
 Herr von Rader (in my memory he always figures 
 as " Herr von Rader ") gave me a nudge : 
 
20 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " Say, old chap, take a look at the fellows with 
 the colossal pants ! " 
 
 The Spahis were at their toilette, arranging their 
 spacious red trousers in picturesque folds. Herr 
 von Rader looked at them with great wonder. 
 
 " My soul what waste ! Why, it's astonishing. 
 Out of a single pair of these pants I could make 
 pants for a whole family and have a fine skirt left 
 for my grandmother ! " 
 
 Then came the Spahi's sashes. Two men helped 
 each other at this important part of their toilet. 
 One Spahi would fasten the blue sash, seven feet in 
 length, and about half a yard in breadth, to his hip, 
 and turn quickly about while his comrade held the 
 other end, keeping the sash tight and tense until 
 his brother-in-arms was rolled up in it. The Spahis 
 seemed to attach great importance to the sit of 
 their sashes, smoothing and ; tightening and re- 
 tightening them with amusing coquetry. 
 
 The great gloomy courtyard was one mass of 
 soldiers. From a gallery a non-commissioned 
 officer read off a string of names from a pay-roll, 
 and in squads the soldiers went up the stairs to 
 receive their travelling allowance. We recruits 
 stood in a corner, not knowing what to do or whom 
 to report ourselves to. Finally a corporal exhorted 
 us to go to the devil. We were in the way. It 
 would not be our turn for a long time. We could 
 wait, we should wait, being nasty recruits, blues, 
 nom de Dieu. Mumbling further things descrip- 
 tive of how he despised blues he went off. Then 
 came soldiers, carrying on boards long rows of 
 
L'AFRIQUE 21 
 
 little tin bowls. The Spahis and Zouaves crowded 
 at once round the steaming pots, but Herr 
 von Rader hurled himself in the fray, and 
 captured portions for all of us. It was thus that 
 I made the acquaintance of "la gamelle," the 
 venerable tin eating bowl of the French army, 
 baptized "la gamelle" centuries ago. I was tasting 
 for the first time the soup of the French army, a 
 mixture of bread and greenstuffs and small pieces 
 of meat. The cooking of this soup was an ancient, 
 time-honoured custom. The musketeers of Louis 
 XIV., of Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin 
 prepared their soup in the very same fashion. 
 
 Lounging about the place we came to the 
 canteen of this curious army hotel, and made our 
 way through a labyrinth of wine-casks, which were 
 massed in front of the little door. There was an 
 awful din inside. We sat down at one of the long 
 tables and were served with the French army wine 
 at fifteen centimes a bottle. Good wine, too, but it 
 was impossible to enjoy it quietly, the Lord of the 
 Canteen, a fat little man with greedy eyes, being 
 eager for business second-hand clothes business. 
 
 He pestered us unceasingly with his offers and 
 demands. Herr von Rader sold his boots for half 
 a franc, after a great deal of haggling, since he 
 wanted the half-franc badly, but objected to going 
 barefooted. The owner of the canteen, however 
 (who evidently thought the buying of good boots 
 at half a franc a good thing), solved the difficulty. 
 Out of some corner he conjured a pair of shoes such 
 as the French Zouaves wear. Although they were 
 
22 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 in a bad state of dilapidation, Herr von Rader 
 figured out that four bottles of wine could be 
 exchanged for fifty centimes, and the boots changed 
 owners. . . . 
 
 Of my possessions, the fat man desired my over- 
 coat. He complimented me on my overcoat. An 
 exceedingly beautiful overcoat such an overcoat 
 as a poor man like he, the fat man, would be very 
 glad to have. When 1 entered the Legion I would 
 have to sell it and I would be sure not to get more 
 than two francs for it. He would give me four. I 
 never would get as much as that in Algeria, he 
 said. Half an hour he talked to me in the vain 
 endeavour to talk me out of the overcoat. But the 
 " poor man " had a much too prosperous look about 
 him. Moreover, a Zouave whispered in my ear 
 that the cochon of a canteen-keeper was getting rich 
 by his little " business." So I told him to go to a 
 place which we generally consider hot and dis- 
 agreeable. Then the fat man tried it with the 
 others, and made excellent bargains. For a few 
 copper pieces he bought many things, for the 
 twentieth part of their value, boots and coats and 
 pocket-books. The Swiss recruit even sold his 
 trousers. He got five sous for them. He got a 
 pair of old French infantry trousers into the bargain 
 since he had to have some sort of compensation for 
 these very necessary garments. The fat man's 
 greedy eyes had a happy light in them and he 
 bought whatever he could lay his hands on. 
 
 There was money to be made even out of the 
 poor devils of recruits for the Legion ! 
 
L'AFRIQUE 23 
 
 I preferred the open air. Leaving the wine and 
 laughter behind me I walked through the fort and 
 climbed up to the bulwarks. The cannon had 
 vanished ; where once they had been mounted there 
 grew little tufts of grass on the gravel. I was quiet 
 and lonesome on the old battlements. They com- 
 manded a view of the whole of Marseilles. The 
 city and the port were enveloped in a curious 
 yellowish light, the bright yellow of the South. 
 Through a veil of yellow I saw the enormous 
 massive street-blocks of Lower Marseilles, and far 
 away the little villas of the suburbs, their flat roofs 
 reflecting a multitude of colours, with an ever-domi- 
 nating leitmotiv of yellow. The harbour seemed 
 far away and its noises were dimly audible. 
 The ship masts, the elevators, the bridges looked 
 tiny and delicate as the threads of a giant spider's 
 web. 
 
 South of my bulwark there was the ocean and 
 peace. Between the walls of St. Jean and the 
 vis-a-vis, an ochre-coloured rocky promontory, 
 there was a stretch of deep blue water, of the most 
 beautiful blue in all the world. 
 
 Herr von Rader had followed me. He didn't say 
 a word, but sat quietly on the wall swaying to and 
 fro, like a pendulum. From time to time he spat 
 to the whispering waters below. And how pleased 
 he was when he managed to hit a fisherman. But 
 not a word he said. 
 
 Little I cared for Herr von Rader and his con- 
 tempt of the world. What a strange thing this 
 ocean-bound fortress was ! The mighty walls now 
 
24 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 enclosed but an inn. The fort had been turned 
 into an inn in its old days. Its artillery had been 
 sold for old iron long ago. It had ceased to be a 
 fighting machine. It was a resting-place, an hotel 
 for the recruits of France's colonial army to pass 
 a day and a night until the troopship carried them 
 to Africa or French Indo- China or Madagascar. 
 Every day of the year the old fort received new 
 guests for a day and a night. Many thousands of 
 men had lodged in it. ... 
 
 Fort St. Jean was France's gate for her colonial 
 soldiers. For a few the gate to the Legion of 
 Honour, for the majority the gate to suffering and 
 misery and sickness, to a nameless grave in the hot 
 sands of Africa. 
 
 I wondered whither my road would lead me, in 
 what manner I should perish. . . . 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The packet boat on which we were transported 
 to Africa had left Marseilles. 
 
 Holding my hands to my ears, so that I might 
 not hear a French word or a French sound and be 
 reminded that I was a legionnaire, I stood in the 
 bows staring at the wonders of Marseilles. There 
 were a number of little islands wrapped in blue 
 mist, playing hide-and-seek, until the sun appeared. 
 Now the game was over and the veil of mist 
 disappeared. The hills and the houses lay glorious 
 in an ocean of colour. There was a rocky island 
 with an ancient gloomy castle. I knew it to be the 
 prison of Monte Christo, the great adventurer of 
 the elder Dumas, and I felt very much as the 
 
L'AFRIQUE 25 
 
 imprisoned Count of Monte Christo must have 
 felt. 
 
 Marseilles disappeared. Ocean and sun arranged 
 a wonderful play for a poor devil of a legionnaire. 
 Far out to sea the sun would try to catch the little 
 waves, throwing floods of brilliant light on pearly 
 cascading water. And then the little waves escaped 
 again, amidst fun and laughter, and ran off to 
 inspect our ship. They struck the ship's sides and 
 seemed very much surprised that they were so 
 solid. They said so plainly enough, making a great 
 deal of noise and fuss about it. But they soon 
 became good-humoured again and told the nicest 
 stories about fairy palaces of the deep and the peace 
 of the ocean. Unthinkingly I had taken my hands 
 down, and heard my new comrades quarrelling 
 amongst themselves. The wine had not been fairly 
 divided. 
 
 The spell was broken. 
 
 I recognised now well enough that I was standing 
 on one of the lowest steps of the world's ladder, but I 
 hadnot expected contempt, disdain and rough treat- 
 ment to touch me so soon. The ship's cook began it. 
 
 " Nix comprends," cried the cook. The old packet 
 of the " Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes," on 
 which we made the voyage across the Mediterranean 
 to Oran, had made a miserable bargain when hiring 
 that cook. The thing was called Jacques. It even 
 answered occasionally to its name if it felt like it. 
 It was malicious, wondrously versed in profanity, 
 addicted to lying, and very filthy. 
 
 The first day there was nothing to eat for us 
 
26 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 until evening. At three o'clock in the afternoon 
 of the second day we were still waiting, very hungry 
 indeed, for our first meal, and I thought it time to 
 have a talk with Mr. Jacques. I told him that our 
 board was paid for and that we wanted something 
 to eat. Quick, too. 
 
 The thing answered with a nicely chosen assort- 
 ment of oaths. He swore like a well, like a man 
 from Marseilles. He was pleased to inform me 
 that according to his opinion dirty legionnaires were 
 expressly made to do a lot of waiting. If he should 
 happen to have spare time on his hands, he might 
 try and get something to eat for us. But he was 
 not quite sure whether or not he would have time ! 
 
 Now this pleased me. I knew to a nicety how 
 to arrange matters with this thing. 
 
 " Well, my son," I said lovingly, " won't you 
 please take a look at these eight comrades of mine ? 
 They are Germans and cannot talk French. But 
 they are very good at smashing things. They're 
 quite experts at that sort of thing. See how they 
 are looking at you ? I rather think they are going 
 to beat you horribly." 
 
 " Allez done ! " remarked the cook dubiously. 
 He seemed uneasy. 
 
 "They are Prussians. Very likely they'll kill 
 you. I am going to help them at it." 
 
 The cook took a look at me and a second look at 
 the "Prussians." He was rather pale and seemed 
 to think that he was up against it. First he cursed 
 volubly, then he dived into his dark hole of a kitchen 
 and fetched out a tin filled with macaroni, a number 
 
L'AFRIQUE 27 
 
 of loaves of bread, and a bucketful of wine about a 
 gallon. There were no knives, however, exactly four 
 forks for nine men, and one little drinking-cup. 
 
 The other day one of these packets foundered 
 somewhere on the Algerian coast. I sincerely hope 
 it was the packet I crossed on, and that Jacques the 
 cook was drowned. . . . 
 
 * * * * 
 
 On the evening of the second day a visitor came 
 to us from the first-class part of the boat. He was 
 a sergeant in the Foreign Legion and ventured 
 among the third-class passengers to have a look at 
 his new recruits. Being a Belgian, he could not 
 talk German with them, and so I had the honour 
 of conversation with him for a couple of hours. 
 
 Yes, the Germans made fine soldiers, although 
 they were very thick-headed. Such an obstinate 
 race ! It would be best for me if I foregathered 
 with Frenchmen only in the Legion. My French 
 needed cultivating badly, said the sergeant. Then 
 he ordered a bottle of wine and talked about the 
 Legion. Lies, mostly. One of his stories is worth 
 the telling however. 
 
 In 1880 a young German enlisted in the Legion. 
 He was an excellent soldier, spoke a brilliant French, 
 and was considered a good fellow. A detachment 
 of the Legion, of which he was a member, was 
 suddenly attacked by Arabs near Saida. The com- 
 manding officer, a lieutenant, was severely wounded, 
 and all of the non-commissioned officers killed at 
 the first attack. Now the young German took 
 command and led a furious onslaught on the 
 
28 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 attacking Arabs, managing to hold out until help 
 came. Shot in the breast he was carried into camp, 
 and the colonel of the regiment gave his own Cross 
 of the Legion of Honour to the dying man. The 
 young German asked the surgeon whether he had a 
 chance of life. The doctor said yes, of course. 
 But, finally, the new Chevalier of the Legion of 
 Honour was told the truth and thereupon demanded 
 a short interview with his commanding officer. 
 
 Telegrams went flying between the little desert 
 station and the capital of Germany. ... In the 
 evening the legionnaire died. A week later a veiled 
 lady appeared in Saida to take the body to the 
 Fatherland. Chevaliers of the Legion of Honour 
 escorted their dead comrade, and the French flag 
 covered the coffin. The young German had been a 
 royal prince of Prussia ! 
 
 " Do you actually believe this yarn ? " I asked 
 the sergeant. 
 
 " It's an absolute fact ! " said he, very serious and 
 very much offended. 
 
 The same story was told me, with slight varia- 
 tions, many times in the Legion. The "royal 
 prince of Prussia " is part and parcel of the unwritten 
 history of the Legion, told from legionnaire to 
 legionnaire, and I have often wondered how much 
 truth there may be in the legend. Very likely the 
 man of Saida had been a German aristocrat, the 
 black sheep of some good family, and in the course 
 of time and telling the Legion had made him a 
 royal prince of Prussia. 
 
L'AFRIQUE 29 
 
 Oran came in sight. Nine recruits promptly 
 lined up on deck, staring with wondering eyes at 
 the land to whose shores destiny had sent them to 
 work and wage war for strangers, for a nation 
 whose language even they did not understand. 
 Sandstone cliffs formed a rugged coast-line. From 
 their heights batteries were firing. The target was 
 pontooned in the sea at a distance of about 5000 
 yards from the shore. But the columns of water 
 thrown up by the bursting shrapnel never reached 
 it. The old sergeant shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I am not interested in any shooting but in ours," 
 he said ; " anyway, at shooting with the old JLebel 
 gun the Legion can beat any on earth." 
 
 He was at least loyal to his Legion, the old grey- 
 haired sergeant, even if he did tell so many lies. . . . 
 
 The batteries were at any rate excellently^masked. 
 It was quite impossible to detect their positions. 
 Even when the old sergeant showed me where they 
 were mounted, I could see nothing. High up on 
 the crags the heavy cannon had been built in, behind 
 little sandhills, flanked by large rocks, the whole 
 arrangement looking so very much like nature that 
 none could have suspected that it was artificial. 
 The positions of the guns were perfect. 
 
 We gained the harbour. Suddenly the cliffs 
 opened out East and West, leaving an enormous 
 gap. Out jumped, as from a conjurer's box, the 
 fortress of Oran, a maze of flat-roofed houses on 
 hilly ground. The inner harbour was ridiculously 
 small, just a little square, its room quite taken up 
 by twelve torpedo-boats, two small cruisers and 
 
30 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 half a dozen merchant ships. We had hardly 
 touched the pier when a corporal jumped on board. 
 The famous corporal of the French army, the maid- 
 of-all-work, the busy French corporal who attends 
 to everything and has more real work to do than all 
 the officers of a company together. He read off 
 our names from a list and marched us off to 
 quarters. 
 
 It was a novel scene that met our gaze. 
 Negroes, sparingly attired in loin-cloth and red fez, 
 hurried past in a strange shuffling quickstep, carrying 
 enormous loads on their heads ; taciturn Arabs 
 stood around, wrapped from head to foot in white 
 burnous-cloth ; officers promenaded with their 
 women-folk and occasionally some fine lady would 
 give us a look of curiosity and compassion. A Spahi 
 orderly galloped by on a foaming horse and yelled 
 in high amusement : 
 
 " Bonjour, les bleus ! " 
 
 We were marched across the city square. The 
 surroundings and houses had nothing typical about 
 them until we began to pass through little alleys 
 and byways, where naked black children were 
 playing and rolling in the dirt and filth. 
 
 Then the sand came. The fine African sand that 
 plays such a role in a legionnaire's life. But the 
 road was an ideal road, hard as stone under its sandy 
 covering. A generation of legionnaires, now long 
 dead, had built this road leading to the barracks 
 high up in the hills. The road swept in mighty 
 curves along the cliffs. After an hour of marching 
 we came to some very antiquated barracks. They 
 
L'AFRIQUE 31 
 
 were a counterpart of Fort St. Jean in Marseilles, 
 one of the military hostelries for the many men 
 needed to feed France's colonial stomach. In 
 the courtyard a lieutenant called the roll and 
 seemed very much amused when the new French 
 soldiers answered to their names with a stentorian 
 German: "Hier!" 
 
 We were assigned a nasty little hole of a room. 
 A long wooden bench ran along one side. The 
 bare boards, fifteen feet long and six feet broad, 
 were to form our bed. There was a pitcher of 
 water in one corner and a pile of thin brown 
 blankets lay in another. The earthen floor was 
 covered with half-smoked cigarettes and rubbish. 
 
 After dark I slipped out, glad indeed to leave 
 the wooden bench. The unventilated little hole 
 was not good enough for a dog ! I found a snug, 
 quiet little corner in the courtyard and lay down, 
 wrapped in my overcoat for about five minutes. 
 Then shadowy figures in the uniform of the Legion 
 paid me a visit. 
 
 Yes, a fine evening. Brilliant idea of mine, to 
 sleep in the open air. Filthy place, those quarters 
 for recruits ! Yes, nom d'un petard ! The shadowy 
 figures were old legionnaires, on special duty to keep 
 the barracks in order. Did I like the Algerian 
 wine ? They wanted to know. I did not know 
 anything about it ? Impossible ! Did I know that 
 the price of a " litre," of a full quart, was but four 
 sous even up here on the hills ? Remarkably fine 
 wine! 
 
 " It's a pity [described with a variety of choice 
 
32 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 epithets] that we haven't the [here followed a 
 similar ornate flow of oaths] four sous. And the 
 canteen isn't closed yet ! " 
 
 Small wonder that then I made my first purchase 
 in Africa. Several bottles of wine. 
 
 . . . Somebody knocked at a door hard by, 
 attracted by the jingling of bottles presumably. 
 The knocking was quite modest at first. Then 
 it became imperious. 
 
 "Who is it?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, that's Reddy. He's thirsty, I suppose," 
 said one of the legionnaires. " He's in the lock-up." 
 
 My new friends seemed to regard " being in the 
 lock-up " as the most natural thing that could 
 happen to a legionnaire. We all went to the door 
 of the cell. There was a small air-hole high up 
 in the wall and presently a hand holding a 
 tin cup appeared. 
 
 " Fill up ! " a gruff voice demanded. 
 
 One of the legionnaires climbed on another's 
 shoulders and emptied the contents of half a bottle 
 into the tin cup. 
 
 " That's all right ! " said the poor prisoner. 
 
 " What is he locked up for ? " I wanted to know. 
 
 This the story. 
 
 In the Legion he was nicknamed Reddy, being 
 the happy possessor of a flaming head of red hair. 
 Reddy was a veteran who had ten years of service 
 to his credit and knew well enough that he was no 
 good for anything in all the world except soldiering 
 in the Legion. Ten years is a long time. But, 
 when he was sent to the lonely old barracks on the 
 
L'AFRIQUE 33 
 
 Oran cliffs to play at housekeeping for recruits, 
 a great desire for liberty came upon him. For 
 hours together he would stare at the ocean. Finally 
 he walked quietly down to the harbour on a fine 
 evening and took his pick amongst the fishermen's 
 boats. He did not waste time in considering 
 whether or not the Arab proprietor of the chosen 
 boat would like his proceedings. Such things as 
 boats' chains did not worry Reddy. A large stone 
 did the business. Reddy gave the boat a shove, 
 hoisted sail, and sailed joyfully away. Spain was 
 not far, and luck was with the deserter. In 
 exactly seventeen hours the legionnaire reached the 
 Spanish coast. He had landed at a very desolate 
 spot, but after hunting about he managed to find 
 fishermen's huts. Presently he was the guest 
 of rough coast Spaniards, who did not quite know 
 what to make of the man in red breeches. He got 
 dried fish and nice clear water to live on. Reddy 
 had forgotten all about civilian life, but in his 
 dreams of freedom dried fish and water had not cut 
 a special figure. He did not like it. He changed his 
 mind, however, when a pretty Spanish girl appeared. 
 The girl happened to be the wife of the man who 
 had fed Reddy. The legionnaire neither knew nor 
 cared. He chatted with the girl for an hour or so 
 in a mixture of French and bits of Spanish and 
 sign-talk, enjoying himself well enough until the 
 husband joined in the conversation with a big 
 knife. A gorgeous fight ensued. The other fisher- 
 men assisted their friend and Reddy had a 
 hard run for it. But he reached his boat and 
 
34 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 got safely away, cursing freedom, Spain, and dried 
 fish. For some time he cruised about and finally 
 decided definitely that freedom was no good. In 
 twenty-five hours he was back in Oran. The 
 Arabian fisherman (who had seen the boat coming 
 and wanted to talk things over) received a series of 
 mighty kicks from Reddy in lieu of payment. 
 Then the disgusted deserter reported to his 
 commanding officer. He explained that he had 
 jumped into the boat just for fun, that a big wind 
 a horrible storm, sir had torn the boat from its 
 chain and carried it out to sea. " Yes, sir, I nearly 
 starved. ..." 
 
 The captain happened to be a man with a sense 
 of humour and Reddy got off with twenty 
 days' imprisonment. 
 
 " Damned lucky fellow, that ! It's a wonder that 
 he was not sent to the penal battalion. That 
 means dying by inches, you know," said the l^gion- 
 naires, and uncorked the last bottle. 
 
 I stared at them. They laughed about Reddy's 
 luck. They thought his adventure very funny, this 
 tragical adventure of a man who knew how to fight 
 for the freedom he desired and then did not know 
 what to do with liberty when he had gained it. 
 My God, ten years in the Foreign Legion ! . . . 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 LEGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889 
 
 French and American bugle-calls : Southward to the 
 city of the Foreign Legion : Sidi-bel- Abbes : The ser- 
 geant is not pleased : A final fight with pride : The 
 jokes of the Legion : The wise negro : Bugler Smith : 
 I help a legionnaire to desert : The Eleventh Com- 
 pany : How clothes are sold in the Legion : Number 
 17889 
 
 A BUGLE sounded. 1 was lying on the bare 
 ground in a corner of the courtyard, dozing in that 
 strange borderland between sleeping and waking. 
 The bugle bothered me. The sounds were familiar, 
 but my sleepy brain could not place them. Again 
 and again the calls sounded and half dreaming I 
 searched my memory. 
 
 Now I remembered. It was the reveille, the 
 morning call of the American army. No, there 
 could be no mistake one never forgets the quick 
 nervous air of the American regular's morning call, 
 nor its impressive text : 
 
 I can't get 'em up, 
 I can't get 'em up, 
 I can't get 'em up in the morning ! 
 I can't get 'em up, 
 I can't get 'em up, 
 I can't get 'em up at all ! 
 35 
 
36 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 The old familiar sounds very naturally suggested 
 old remembrances. I dreamt of a misty morning 
 and a hammock slung between two mango-trees, 
 somewhere in the valley of Santiago de Cuba, and a 
 very tired war correspondent listening sleepily to 
 the morning call floating over from the tents of the 
 Sixth Cavalry hard by. A hazy recollection of 
 fantastical foreign legions and broken fortunes 
 crept into the dream. But surely there were no 
 such things. Little Smiley, trumpeter of " B " troop 
 of the Sixth, was sounding the morning call in 
 his funny, drawn-out fashion of course it was 
 Smiley : 
 
 I can't get 'em up at all. . . . 
 
 It was but a dream. Awakening, I sat up and 
 stared about me. Where was Ij anyway? No 
 mango-trees here, no tents, no Sixth Cavalry. And 
 very slowly I realised that Cuba and war correspond- 
 ing were things of the past, that the pebble-stones of 
 the courtyard were part and parcel of a French bar- 
 rack and the soldiers in flaming red trousers running 
 about in the courtyard had a perfect right to call 
 me their comrade. There had been no mistake 
 however about the morning call. There it sounded 
 for the third time : "I can't get 'em up " the 
 reveille of the U.S. regulars ! 
 
 The riddle's solution was rather simple: The 
 "get 'em up" signals of the French and the American 
 army are exactly the same. 
 
 For three days we stayed at the old barracks high 
 up on the cliffs near Oran. On the third day the 
 
 

 LEGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889 37 
 
 packet brought a new batch of recruits for the 
 Foreign Legion, twenty men, most of them Germans. 
 We were all bundled into a rickety little railway 
 train and, at an average speed of about fifteen miles 
 an hour, we raced towards the South, to Sidi- 
 bel- Abbes, the recruiting depot of the Foreign 
 Legion, and headquarters of the Legion's first 
 regiment, the " Premier Etranger." 
 
 It took us six hours to reach Sidi-bel- Abbes. 
 As the distance was about eighty miles, I con- 
 sidered this a very poor performance and felt 
 personally aggrieved by the train's slowness. I 
 had yet to learn that from now on time would 
 be no object to me. After leaving Oran our 
 train crawled through beautiful gardens and pretty 
 little villas. The gardens were followed by long 
 stretches of fields and farmhouses, and then at 
 last civilisation vanished. The desert sands of Africa 
 claimed their right. The burning sun shone 
 upon wavy lines of endless sandhills, upon naked 
 sand. 
 
 After six hours' ride we arrived in Sidi-bel- Abbes. 
 The little station was swarming with men in the 
 uniform of the Foreign Legion. At the primitive 
 little platform gate stood a guard of non-com- 
 missioned officers, carefully watching for would-be 
 deserters. 
 
 A corporal took charge of us and we fell in line 
 to march to the Legion's barracks. 
 
 This first march through the streets and byways 
 of Sidi-bel- Abb^s was a strange experience. The 
 city of the Foreign Legion seemed to be composed 
 
38 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 of peculiar odours and yellow colours in many 
 varieties. I tried to classify the Sidi-bel- Abbes 
 smell, but the attempt was a miserable failure. 
 The strangely sweet scents coming from everywhere 
 and nowhere, which apparently had a very com- 
 posite composition, defied a white man's nose. 
 They were heavy, dull, oppressive ; now reminding 
 one of jasmine blossoms, now of mould and decay. 
 In an atmosphere of yellow floated these scents. 
 The atmosphere was yellow ; yellow were the old- 
 fashioned ramparts of Sidi-bel- Abbes, built by 
 soldiers of the Legion many years ago ; yellow was 
 the fine sandy dust on the streets ; glaring yellow 
 everywhere. The green gardens on the town's out- 
 skirts seemed but animated little spots in a great com- 
 pact mass of yellow. Far away in the background the 
 colossal ridges of the Thessala mountains towered in 
 gigantic shadows of pale yellow. Even the town's 
 buildings flared up hi bright yellow. The people of 
 Sidi-bel- Abbes, adapting themselves to nature in 
 mimicry, must needs paint their houses yellow ! 
 There were a few other colours, but the universal 
 yellow swallowed them up without mercy. 
 
 Between long rows of stately palms and through 
 shady olive groves we marched. An omnibus 
 rattled past. All the seats were occupied by 
 Arabs. The white splendour of a mosque shone 
 from afar. On the balcony of its high minaret a 
 Mohammedan priest in flowing white robes slowly 
 walked to and fro, sharply outlined against the sky. 
 The mosque was far away, but 1 could hear the 
 priest's sonorous voice calling to prayer : 
 
LEGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889 39 
 
 " AIT il Allah. . . . God is God." 
 
 We passed through the ancient gates of the city, 
 which was surrounded with thick, clumsy walls, 
 encircling all Sidi-bel- Abbes. The old walls had 
 seen plenty of fighting. In their time they had 
 been very useful to the small garrison in the con- 
 tinuous struggle with the JBeni Amer, who had 
 again and again tried to retake the place. Along 
 the large well-kept road we marched. Suddenly, 
 at a turning, the barrack buildings loomed up on 
 both sides of the road the Spahis' cavalry barracks 
 and the quarters of the Foreign Legion. 
 
 In single file we marched through a small side 
 entrance alongside of the cumbrous barrack gate. 
 On a long bench near the gate the guard was 
 sitting. They stared at us, grinning stupidly. 
 Their sergeant, with his hands in pockets and a 
 cigarette between the teeth, sized us up, apparently 
 inspecting our physique as if he were taxing a herd 
 of cattle. Then he passed judgment. 
 
 " Pas bon ! " he remarked laconically to the 
 corporal who escorted us. " No good ! " An ugly 
 welcome it was. I stared at the immense gravel- 
 covered barrack yard and its scrupulous cleanness, 
 at the immense buildings and their naked fronts, 
 at the bare windows. Why, this must be a mad- 
 house and I surely I must be a madman, who had 
 to live for five years (five years said the contract) 
 in a place like this. A weird feeling crept over me. 
 I must have lost my way. The moor had caught 
 
40 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 me. I was lost in the jungle. Shut in by these 
 walls I must spend my life. Must 1 live among 
 these uniformed human machines, amongst unthink- 
 ing, unfeeling automatons ? My head swam. A 
 feeling of despair came over me. . . . 
 
 Everywhere in the barrack buildings windows 
 were thrown open, and legionnaires put their heads 
 out, yelling : 
 
 " Eh les bleus ! Bonjour, les bleus ! " 
 
 From all sides they came at a run, calling out to 
 each other joyously, " Les bleus." Our arrival 
 appeared to be an amusement that should not be 
 missed. Hundreds of legionnakes gathered around 
 us, while we were waiting for orders in front of 
 the regimental offices. The contrast between the 
 snowy neatness of their white fatigue uniforms 
 and our shabby attire was very much in their 
 favour. We stood a crossfire of questions, answers 
 and jokes. 
 
 " Hello ! Hadn't enough to eat, eh ? " somebody 
 yelled in German. 
 
 " That's as may be," replied Herr von Rader in 
 cutting sarcasm. " You didn't come to the Legion 
 because you had too much money, did you ? " 
 Applause and laughter greeted this answer. 
 
 " Any one from Frankfort amongst you ? " another 
 asked. " Merde ! " said he, as nobody replied and 
 turned and walked off. 
 
 Then came a surprise. A negro in the uniform 
 of the Legion stalked up to me, regarding me 
 dubiously, shaking his head as if he was not quite 
 sure what to make of me. 
 
LEGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889 41 
 
 " Talk U.S. ? " he asked finally. 
 
 " Guess I do," I said. 
 
 " Golly," yelled the nigger, " here's another ! 
 
 You'se a h of a d fool ! Doucement, 
 
 doucement, white man now, don't get mad. You'se 
 
 surely is a fool ! What in h you want to come 
 
 here for?" 
 
 The humour of the situation struck me. Besides, 
 I always rather liked darkies* 
 
 "What did you come here for?" I asked 
 him. 
 
 " Me ? " said the nigger disgusted, " me ? This 
 child's been fooled, see? I'se in Paris (this here 
 nigger's been 'bout pretty much) and a great big 
 doggone Paris cop nabbed me, see? Oh, 'bout 
 miffing particular. I'se been having a swell time 
 in one ob dem little Paris restorangs sweet times, 
 honey 1 I'se kissed all the girls and I'se kicked 
 eberyding else. Say it was a mess. But this here 
 cop got in and he got me all right no flies on the 
 Paris cops, honey ! In the station house they done 
 a lot of talking to this here nigger, 'bout French 
 penitentiaries, mostly. They did done tell me, it 
 was penitentiary or Legion. This child stuck to the 
 American Consul, o' course. Say, he was no good 
 either. Says he, he done got no time to go fooling 
 wid fresh niggers. Take yer medicine, says he. 
 Which I did taking the Legion. Nix penitentiary 
 for me. That's what this child come here for, sonny ! 
 Bet yer a cigarette you'se be as sick of them Legion 
 people in 'bout four weeks as this nigger is, sure. 
 No good. Nix good. D bad ! " 
 
 
42 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " I knew that before," said I. 
 
 " Then you'se sure done gone crazy, to come 
 he-ar, sonny. Wait a bit, white man. I'se going 
 to tell Smith. He's an American. He's all right. 
 So long ! " 
 
 And in the shambling gait of his race he walked 
 hurriedly away. One of the recruits hailed from 
 Munich. He was in high debate with another 
 Bavarian legionnaire. . . . 
 
 " You're from Munich, you fool ? There's no beer 
 here I " the old legionnaire yelled. " Why didn't 
 you stay in Munich and stick to the beer, eh ? 
 Isn't it bad enough if one Munich fool drinks their 
 sticky old wine? Why, I've almost forgotten 
 how a ' Masskrug ' looks, and what the ' Hof braii- 
 haus' is like. It's a sinful shame, it is. Yes, 
 there's no beer here. You'll be surprised, you 
 will ! " 
 
 I was still laughing at the two legionnaires from 
 the city of beer and " Steins " when an old soldier 
 started talking to me very softly. 
 
 " Won't you give me your suit of clothes ? You 
 must sell it, you know, and you will not get more 
 than a few sous for it." 
 
 I looked at the man. " Why do you want my 
 clothes ? " I asked him. 
 
 " To get away ! I must get out of this ! My God, 
 if I had civilian clothes, I might get through. I'd 
 run away at once and I am pretty sure I could 
 manage to sneak out of Algeria. You'll give me 
 your suit, won't you ? This is about my only chance. 
 I'll never have enough money to buy a suit. Is it 
 
LEGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889 43 
 
 all right ? As soon as you are uniformed, I'll come 
 for the suit. I can easily find out in what com- 
 pany they are going to put you." 
 
 Again the man looked at me with scared, plead- 
 ing eyes, anxiously waiting. He was evidently in 
 deadly earnest. I was deeply impressed. He 
 meant to desert, of course. I had read enough 
 about the Foreign Legion to know that desertion 
 from that corps was a desperate and perilous under- 
 taking. This poor devil was determined to risk it 
 and I could help him. It occurred to me that, 
 in a very short time, I might feel very much 
 as he felt now. Certainly he should have my 
 clothes. . . . 
 
 " You can have them and welcome." 
 " That's the best piece of luck I've had since I 
 came to this * verdammte ' Legion," said the man. 
 He was a German, a Pomeranian, I should say, 
 judging from the dialect he spoke. 
 
 Meanwhile Black (John William Black was the 
 negro's very appropriate name) had come back, 
 with a bugler who looked as much like a " Yank " 
 as anybody could look. 
 
 " So you're American ? " the bugler asked. 
 " About half of me is," I said. 
 "Oh, German- American ! I see. That's all 
 right. It's pretty tough work here in the Legion ; 
 well, you'll see for yourself. I'm mighty glad to 
 talk U.S. to a white man. The nigger's no good 
 you know you're not, Blacky ! and me and him 
 are the only two Americans in this damfool outfit. 
 Blacky 's always kicking up a row about something, 
 
44 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 and he spends most of his time in prison, and when 
 he's not there he generally manages to get drunk. 
 Beat's me, on what ! He's a pretty hard case, ain't 
 you, Blacky ? " 
 
 "Shoore I am, you son-of-an-old-trumpet ! " 
 grinned the negro. 
 
 " I wonder what company you'll be assigned to," 
 continued the " son-of-an-old-trumpet." " If the 
 sergeant should ask you whether you had any pre- 
 ference, tell him you would like to be assigned to 
 the eleventh. That's my company. We could 
 play poker. I could show you the ropes, too. 
 Life's no snap in this outfit, you know ! " 
 
 "Aren't there any other Americans in the 
 Legion ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, about twenty. There are seven with 
 the fourth battalion of the first, somewhere in 
 Indo-China. The second regiment of the Legion in 
 Saida has thirteen or fourteen American legion- 
 naires. Two of them are sergeants, and one is 
 colour-sergeant ; McAllister is his name. He's a 
 good man. Yes, about twenty boys from the 
 States have a hand in this Legion business ! " 
 
 " Garde a vous ! " commanded the sergeant, 
 coming out of the regimental offices. "Atten- 
 tion ! " 
 
 The roll was called and we were divided up 
 amongst two companies, the third and the eleventh. 
 I was assigned to the eleventh " la onzi&me." We 
 marched across the drill-ground to one of the bar- 
 rack buildings. In the storeroom of the eleventh 
 company underwear and white fatigue uniforms, 
 
LEGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889 45 
 
 woven from African " Alfa " fibres, were issued to 
 us. Then each man got a nightcap. These rather 
 unsoldierly caps were worn by all of the legion- 
 naires in the cold African nights. Soap and towels 
 the sergeant-major also distributed, remarking that 
 we seemed to be badly in need of soap, which cer- 
 tainly was true. We were then marched off to 
 a small house at the back of the drill-ground. 
 Its one room contained a number of primitive 
 shower-baths. While we were bathing, a sergeant 
 watched at the door, critically inspecting and 
 exhorting us again and again : 
 
 " Bon Dieu, get a good wash ! Be sure you get 
 a thorough wash ! " 
 
 After we had dressed in the fatigue uniforms he 
 commanded : " Take your civilian clothes under 
 your arms," and led us to a little side entrance of 
 the barracks. A sentinel opened the door and 
 hell broke lose. Arabs, Levantines, Spanish Jews, 
 niggers beleaguered the door, and the sentinel had 
 to use the butt of his rifle he seemed to like the 
 job though to keep them from getting in. In 
 many languages they yelled, gesticulating with 
 hands and feet, jumping about, making a horrible 
 noise. At first I had no idea what it all meant. 
 Then I understood. They wanted to buy our 
 clothes . . . that was all. They got very excited 
 over the business and seemed to think they could 
 buy our things for a copper piece or two. Finally 
 the sergeant acted himself as our agent and arranged 
 prices. 
 
 Even then it was a good thing for them. Any 
 
46 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 second-hand clothes dealer in any of the world's 
 large cities would have looked at the scene with the 
 blackest envy. A good suit of clothes fetched two 
 francs, boots eighty centimes, white shirts and cravats 
 were thrown into the bargain. Every one of the 
 native " men of business " knew well, of course, that 
 the recruits were forced to sell at once. Civilian 
 clothes are not allowed to be kept in the Legion. 
 None of the recruits got more than three or four 
 francs for his things. It was a great piece of 
 swindling. I was saved the trouble of bartering 
 with the native riff-raff. The legionnaire who took 
 an interest in my clothes turned up, while the 
 sergeant was busy at the door, pulled my clothes- 
 bundle softly from under my arm, stuffed it under 
 his jacket and walked away in a hurry. Next day 
 he was missed, Smith told me. ... 
 
 Our next visit was to the eleventh company's 
 office, where our names and professions were entered 
 on the company's lists. It was nothing but a 
 matter of form. Herr von Rader declared that his 
 father was the Chancellor of the German Supreme 
 Court and that he himself was by profession a 
 juggler and lance-corporal of marine reserves. 
 And the colour-sergeant put it all down in the big 
 book without the ghost of a smile. 
 
 Each of us was given a number, the " matricule " 
 number of the Foreign Legion. Our names mattered 
 nothing. We were called by numbers : My number 
 was 17889. 
 
 From now on I was merely a number, a strict 
 
LEGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889 47 
 
 impersonal number. . . . They number men in peni- 
 tentiaries. It was just the same in the Legion. 
 I had got what I wanted. The great Legion's 
 impersonality had swallowed me up. What was 
 my name now ? . . . Number 17889. . . . 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FOREIGN LEGION'S BARRACKS 
 
 In the company's storeroom : Mr. Smith American, 
 legionnaire, philosopher : The Legion's neatness : The 
 favourite substantive of the Foreign Legion : What the 
 commander of the Old Guard said at Waterloo : Old 
 and young legionnaires : The canteen : Madame la 
 Cantiniere : The regimental feast : Strange men and 
 strange things : The skull : The prisoners' march : 
 The wealth of Monsieur Rassedin, legionnaire : (t Re- 
 habilitation " : The Koran chapter of the Stallions 
 
 THE eleventh company's storeroom was in a state 
 of siege. We besieged the place, pushing and being 
 pushed, hunting for standing room, but everywhere 
 standing in somebody's way. The "non-coms" 
 had very soon exhausted their vocabulary of strong 
 language and could only express their feelings 
 in fervent prayers that fifteen thousand devils 
 might fly away with those thrice confounded recruits 
 ces malheureux bleus. A corporal, two sergeants, 
 a sergeant-major and half a dozen legionnaires de- 
 tached for storeroom work continually fell over 
 each other in their haste to get done at last with 
 the trying on of uniforms and with the issue of the 
 kit. Countless jackets and pants were tried on ; 
 they put numerous " kepis " upon our sinful heads, 
 and again and again they anathematised our awk- 
 
 48 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACK'S 49 
 
 wardness in priceless adjectives. In big heaps the 
 property of our future Legion life was dealt out 
 to us ; red pants and fatigue uniforms, blue jackets 
 and overcoats, sashes, knapsacks, field-flasks, leather 
 straps and belts, a soldier's kit in a bewildering 
 jumble. 
 
 " Ready ! " said the sergeant-major at last with 
 a grin of relief. " And that's something to be 
 thankful for. Here, Corporal Wassermann, take 
 them away. Voila ! Off with your mess of recruits. 
 Try and make legionnaires out of the beggars. Yes, 
 you'll find it a big contract. I wish you joy, 
 Corporal Wassermann." 
 
 " En avant, marche ! " commanded the corporal. 
 Once more the non-commissioned officers of the 
 storeroom told us exactly what they thought of us 
 and where they wished us to go. Their remarks 
 were extremely pointed and expressive of their 
 disgust. 
 
 We mounted three flights of stairs and the 
 passing legionnaires of the company stared at us 
 in curiosity. 
 
 Through a long corridor we marched, until the 
 corporal kicked a door open and led us into a big 
 room, our future quarters. We looked about our new 
 home. Twenty beds were in the room, ten on one 
 side, ten on the other, perfectly aligned. In the 
 middle of the room stood two big wooden tables and 
 long benches, scoured gleaming white. Everything 
 in the place was scrupulously neat and clean. A rack 
 in the corner held our rifles. Suspended from the 
 ceiling, over the tables, there was a cupboard the 
 
 D 
 
50 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " pantry " of our quarters. It struck me as very 
 practical. Knives and forks, the men's tin plates 
 and tin cups, our bread rations were kept there. 
 Half a dozen legionnaires were sitting on bunks and 
 benches, cleaning their rifles and polishing their 
 leather belts our comrades. 
 
 Corporal Wassermann, lying in his bunk puffing 
 a cigarette, took a good long look at us. He was 
 little more than a boy. 
 
 " Eh bien," he said, " I am your corporal. You 
 will have to learn French as quickly as possible. 
 That's very important. Keep your ears open and 
 listen to everything that's said. That is the right 
 way to go about it. We shall begin drilling to- 
 morrow. To-day you will have to arrange your 
 bunks and things. I shall arrange your bunks in 
 such a fashion that each of you shall be placed 
 between two old legionnaires. You've only got 
 to watch how they fix their things and do the 
 same. It is all very simple. When you have 
 finished arranging your stuff, you can do what you 
 please." 
 
 Then he assigned a bunk to each of us and went 
 off whistling. To the canteen, of course. 
 
 " Hallo ! " said Smith. He had just come in. 
 " That's all right. So you've not only been sent to 
 the eleventh, but to my room as well. And that's 
 all right. That's my bunk over there at the 
 window. Take the one next. It's been given to 
 a recruit already, you say ? Oh, kick him out, kick 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 51 
 
 him out. What do you suppose the corporal cares 
 where you bunk. I'll fix it with him. And that's 
 all right. I'm going to call you Dutchy. Now 
 don't object, because I'm going to call you Dutchy 
 anyhow, see ? " 
 
 He was evidently pleased. So was I. From 
 the start I had taken a liking to this man with the 
 sharply cut features and the curious air of infinite 
 knowledge. The pasteboard card on his bed 
 said: 
 
 "Jonathan Smith, N 10247, soldat I 6re * classe." 
 
 He was the company's bugler, and had nine 
 years' service in the Foreign Legion to his credit. 
 Fever and privation and vice had engraved hard 
 lines in his face, and when he rolled his cigarettes 
 in French fashion, his hands trembled just a little. 
 His hair was quite grey. He had fought against 
 Chinese pirates in French Indo-China, he had 
 campaigned in Madagascar and won the French 
 medal for bravery on colonial service. During this 
 campaign he had been shot in the shoulder and had 
 had a severe attack of jungle fever. There was no 
 garrison in Algeria, be it on the Morocco frontier, 
 be it on the Sahara line, where he had not been 
 stationed once at least. He was a perfect encyclo- 
 paedia of all things connected with the Legion. He 
 could swear fluently in English, German, French, 
 and Arabian, and had even acquired a pretty fair 
 
 * The Foreign Legion and the French army in general make 
 a distinction between first-class privates and second-class privates. 
 The first-class private has the grade of a lance-corporal. 
 
 
52 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 knowledge of Chinese expressions of disgust. He 
 was friend and brother to several Arabs with 
 doubtful characters, he could recite whole chapters 
 of the Koran by heart, and knew a great deal about 
 Morocco. Which will be seen later on. 
 
 He was in fact a man well worth knowing. 
 
 From the very beginning there was a perfect 
 understanding between us. He volunteered the 
 information that he was a native of California and 
 had " seen a few things in his life." I answered 
 with the bare statement that I was a German, and 
 had lived hi the United States for some years. 
 Both remarks were the basis for a tacit agreement 
 to keep within the limits of strict impersonality. 
 
 He lay on his bunk, and I tried to get some order 
 in my newly issued belongings. 
 
 " Your shoulders have been drilled into shape 
 somewhere ? " said Smith. 
 
 " They were." 
 
 " States ? " 
 
 " No, Germany." 
 
 " Oh, I see. Thought you might have been in 
 the U.S. army. Wish I had stuck to it." 
 
 " Have you tried the Legion's tobacco yet ? " he 
 continued. 
 
 We rolled ourselves cigarettes from strong, black 
 Algerian tobacco, and Smith stretched himself com- 
 fortably on his bunk with his knees drawn up, his 
 cap pulled down over his eyes. Smoking con- 
 tentedly, the old soldier preached me the Legion's 
 wisdom : 
 
 " There's no money here the pay is not worth 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 53 
 
 speaking of, I mean. There's a lot of work. It's 
 a hard life all round. That's the Foreign Legion. 
 There's no earthly reason why any man should be 
 fool enough to serve in this outfit, unless he's 
 specially fond of being underfed and overworked. 
 When I come to think of it I don't know what 
 the dickens made me stay nine years ! Because 
 there's something doing once in a while, I suppose. 
 Well, I'll stick it out for the pension now. Any- 
 way, you've joined the Legion more fool you 
 you're here and you can make up your mind that 
 you are here to stay. And you must look at 
 things in the right way. Legion life can be stood 
 right enough, if you don't let yourself be worried 
 by anything at all, if you're as ice-cold as Chicago 
 in January, and if you're lucky enough to see some- 
 thing doing. Whether we march against the 
 Arabs or Chinese (there's a battalion of us in Indo- 
 China, you know) or to ' Maroc ' at last, that's all 
 the same, but it's good to be on the move in the 
 Legion. Then a legionnaire's life ain't half bad. 
 Don't ever forget, though, to have your feelings 
 frozen into an iceblock. Don't let anything bother 
 you. No use getting mad about things here. 
 Just say to yourself : * C'est la Legion.' When you're 
 dead played out, and you think you can't stand it 
 any longer ; when the fever's got you by the neck ; 
 when you're sitting and fuming in the ' cellule ' 
 (that's the prison, Dutchy), or when some sergeant's 
 giving you hell grin, sonny, and say to yourself: 
 ' C'est la Legion ! ' That's the Legion. Do your work 
 and don't worry. If any of the fellows get fresh, 
 
54 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 hit quick and hit hard c'est la Legion. And don't 
 forget that the main thing in this Foreign Legion 
 business is neatness and cleanliness. You want to 
 have your things in order, you want to be neat. 
 So!" 
 
 He rummaged in the bundle of uniform things 
 on my bed, pulling out one by one jackets, pants, 
 shirts, &c., and folding them with astonishing 
 quickness. I watched him in wonder. This old 
 soldier with his big rough hands had fingers as clever 
 as any chambermaid's. Piece after piece he folded 
 rapidly, smoothing every crease with almost ridicu- 
 lous care. Each of the folded pieces he measured, 
 giving each the same length, from the tips of his 
 fingers to his elbow. Finally he erected with these 
 bundles, upon the shelf at the wall over my bed, 
 an ingenious structure of uniforms, the " paquetage " 
 of the Legion. The legionnaire has no clothes-chest 
 like the American regular. To get over this diffi- 
 culty he invented his " paquetage," which is a work 
 of art, solving the military problem of how to stow 
 away several uniforms in a compact space without 
 crumpling them. 
 
 With half-shut eyes the bugler stood in front 
 of my bunk and regarded his handiwork. 
 
 " And that's all right," he said. " That's a 'paque- 
 tage,' how it should be. It's 'fantasie,' pure 
 ' fantasie,' Dutchy dear. Making * fantasie ' * it 
 is called in the Legion, if one tries to be always 
 ' tres chic ' and ' parfaitement propre,' to be a swell. 
 
 * This curious expression of the Foreign Legion is, of course, 
 an imitation of the Moorish " fantasia." 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 55 
 
 Yes, that's the Legion. We are lazy by preference, 
 but we're always neat. Always ! " 
 
 The "paquetage" was not the only miracle. I 
 was very much impressed by the way every bit of 
 available space was put to the utmost use. A 
 legionnaire keeps his linen in his haversack. For 
 his letters, his books, for the few other articles of 
 private property he possesses, he finds room in his 
 knapsack; his brushes and his polishing-rags are 
 carefully stored away in a little sack which hangs 
 on the wall. Even the most trivial of his belongings 
 has its appointed place. A legionnaire keeps his 
 kit in such perfect order that he can find everything 
 in the dark. 
 
 While I was making my bed, the bugler looked 
 on for a while, grinning all the time. Finally 
 he couldn't stand it any longer. He pulled the 
 blankets and the sheets I had spread out away again 
 and started showing me how to make a bed " a la 
 Legion." Bed-making was another of the Legion's 
 tricks. In a few seconds Smith had arranged the 
 bed-clothes in wonderful accuracy, blankets drawn 
 tight as a drum, pillows placed in mathematical 
 exactness. 
 
 " Merde ! " he said, " that's how we legionnaires 
 fix our bunks. It's easy enough." 
 
 " Merde ? " I asked, " what does * merde ' mean, 
 anyway ? " 
 
 It was a French word unknown to me. Smith 
 used it continually, underlining his remarks with it, 
 so to speak. He seemed to like it. He pronounced 
 it with much care, lovingly. Naturally I thought 
 
56 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 that it must be some especially forceful invective, 
 the more so as the sergeant-major in the storeroom 
 (who certainly had not been in good humour) had 
 said "merde" about five hundred times in ten 
 minutes. And the other legionnaires in the room 
 liked it apparently no less. The " merdes " were 
 always flying about. . . . 
 
 " Well, what is this merde ' ? " 
 
 Smith nearly had a fit. 
 
 " Merde ? " he yelled, laughing as if he had sud- 
 denly gone crazy, " what ' merde ' means ? Why, 
 you owl, ' merde ' is ." 
 
 He used a word which certainly does not exist in 
 the vocabulary of polite society, an old Anglo-Saxon 
 substantive, describing a most natural function and 
 expressing huge disgust when used as an invective. 
 
 This little word is the favourite substantive of 
 the Foreign Legion. It is the substantive of the 
 Legion ! The English Tommy rejoices in his time- 
 honoured adjective "bloody," the American revels 
 in his precious " damned," the Mexican cavalryman 
 enjoys his malignant hissing "caracho," and the 
 legionnaire is distinctly unhappy without his well- 
 beloved " merde." It's the most used word in the 
 Foreign Legion. It has suffered curious deriva- 
 tions : Merdant, merdable. ... It has a happy 
 home in all French regiments it is part and parcel 
 of the French army's soldier-talk. The Legion wor- 
 ships it. Out of it the legionnaire has even 
 fabricated a verb. When an officer gives him a 
 " dressing down," the legionnaire says simply and 
 devoutly : 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 57 
 
 " II m'enmerde ! " 
 
 The French army's primitive substantive of 
 disgust is very ancient. It is time-honoured, it is 
 classical. 
 
 At Waterloo the commander of Napoleon's Old 
 Guard is said to have replied to the challenge to 
 surrender, pompously : " The Old Guard dies, but it 
 does not surrender ! " In the French army, however, 
 it is an old tradition that he simply yelled : 
 
 " Merde ! " 
 
 Invectives of all descriptions were used with much 
 vigour in our quarters just now. The old legion- 
 naires took a delight in kicking the clumsy recruits 
 about. In drastic terms they told them exactly 
 what they thought of them, of their past, of their 
 families, of their future. They felt very sorry (so 
 they said) for the poor old eleventh company having 
 been buncoed into taking such an awful pack of 
 useless recruits. Many were the fools they had seen 
 in the Legion, but never such idiots as we were. 
 Pretty fellows, those recruits ! A nice assortment 
 of pigs ! Fine times they (the poor old legionnaires) 
 would have, living in the same quarters with these 
 " bleus." 
 
 " Why there's one of 'em sitting on my bed. 
 What's this bow-legged monkey doing on my bunk ? 
 Get off! Get off quick, son of a jackal ! Do you 
 suppose that my bunk's a manceuvring-ground for 
 dirty recruits ? " 
 
 The old legionnaires knew their business, however. 
 
58 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Abuse alone was not good enough. They wanted 
 to see practical results. So they explained to the 
 " bleus " that recruits, and especially such recruits as 
 now present, could never manage to build a " paque- 
 tage" without help. That was a foregone con- 
 clusion. Said one of them : 
 
 " Can't you see that ? If such a thing as intelli- 
 gence had a place in your empty heads, you would 
 have seen long ago that you needed help. Who's 
 going to help you ? We are. We old legionnaires 
 will help you we who know everything and can 
 fix anything. But we're thirsty, you see. Tant de 
 soif ! Such a thirst. I put it to you : Is it right 
 that recruits, recruits, mind you, who have just sold 
 their clothes and got a lot of money in their pockets, 
 should look on and say nothing, while their betters 
 are dying of thirst. Is it right, eh ? " 
 
 There the others joined in : " A lions done pour 
 un litre let's drink a litre in the canteen." 
 
 The arguments of the old fellows met with 
 enormous success. At frequent intervals old and 
 young legionnaires left the quarters to pay a visit to 
 the canteen and render homage to the immortal 
 " litre " of the Foreign Legion. The whole per- 
 formance was an old custom. Old legionnaires 
 always rejoice when new recruits arrive antici- 
 pating many pleasant walks to the canteen. . . . 
 
 One of the recruits, a Swiss, on returning from 
 the canteen found that the greater part of the kit on 
 his bed had disappeared. Almost everything was 
 gone. A complete uniform, a fatigue suit, an 
 overcoat and several other things were missing. 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 59 
 
 The Swiss, scared to death, asked every man in 
 the room if he had seen his things. But his kit had 
 vanished. 
 
 The old legionnaires gathered about his bunk. 
 Very likely he had lost part of his outfit while 
 coming up the stairs, they said. They told him 
 that one must look after one's kit in the Legion. If 
 he could not find the missing uniforms, he would be 
 certain to be sent to prison at the very least. He 
 might even be punished with deportation into the 
 penal battalion. Losing part of the uniform was 
 the very worst crime known in the Legion. 
 
 The Swiss ran up and down the stairs hunting for 
 his lost uniforms, but naturally found nothing. 
 
 Again the old legionnaires talked to him. They 
 played their part very well. 
 
 " You're a poor devil," they said. " We're sorry 
 for you. We'll try and help you. It's a very 
 difficult case, but we might be able to do something. 
 The non-commissioned officer of the third company's 
 storeroom is a pretty decent fellow. He'll do some- 
 thing for an old legionnaire. We'll try him. 
 There's just the chance that he will give us the 
 stuff you have lost from his stock of uniforms 
 for a little money. He's fond of making something 
 on the quiet. Five francs would do, and what are 
 measly five francs anyway, if they are the means of 
 saving you from prison ? " 
 
 The poor devil was glad enough to get off with 
 paying five francs. It was just what he had got for 
 his clothes. 
 
 . . . Very soon the old soldiers came back. 
 
60 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 That good fellow of a sergeant had given them 
 everything needed ! Faultless new uniforms ! And 
 the Swiss recruit thanked the old thieves profusely. 
 
 Personally I was angry at the shabby trick 
 played on the poor devil. I had known from the 
 very outset that it was only a trick. The rascals 
 had stolen the recruit's uniforms, and had then sold 
 him back his own things ! It certainly was no 
 business of mine, and I did not interfere. In a 
 way the comic side of the thing appealed to my 
 sense of humour, but it was a nasty trick all the 
 same. While I was wondering whether I should 
 tell that fool of a Swiss how he had been done, one 
 of the old legionnaires happened to sit down on 
 my bunk. 
 
 " Get off my bed ! " I said. 
 
 Blank astonishment was written on the man's 
 face. 
 
 " What d d cheek for a raw recruit. You 
 
 impertinent ..." 
 
 " My bed's my bed. Get off. Sit on your own 
 bed. Just now you raised a row because one of 
 us was sitting on yours. Get away from here and 
 be quick about it." 
 
 The old legionnaire rose slowly. 
 
 " Viens la bas ! " he yelled. " Come down below 
 to the yard with me. I'll teach you that a good- 
 for-nothing recruit should respect an old soldier. 
 Come down ! " 
 
 Together we descended the stairs, a few other 
 legionnaires following. The bugler was amongst 
 them. 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 61 
 
 " Give him hell," he said. " Look out for his feet ! " 
 
 I was very pleased with myself. It was bad 
 enough to be in the Legion, but one could at least 
 play the man. . . . 
 
 At the back entrance of the company's quarters, 
 in a small alley-way, we found a quiet spot to settle 
 our little difference. He kicked furiously in 
 French fashion, and I barely managed to escape. 
 Then we closed in and in a second were rolling 
 over and over on the gravel-covered ground. 
 Now one had the upper hand, now the other. My 
 antagonist's strength surpassed mine by far. I 
 could do but very little in his iron grip. I began 
 to wonder how many of my ribs would survive the 
 fray. But all at once I got the upper hand. 
 Again and again he tried to get a grip of my 
 throat, but I caught his hand every time. We 
 rolled over and over. My strength was fast sink- 
 ing. At the last moment almost, I noticed a big 
 stone on the ground quite near his head. I wrested 
 my hand free. Seizing my antagonist by the hair, 
 I pounded his head against the stone as hard as I 
 could. Once twice four times. . . . His grip 
 relaxed. . . . 
 
 " Assez ! " he yelled, " enough." 
 
 " Tres bien," the onlooking old legionnaires 
 said, " very good." 
 
 The bugler was disgusted. (So was I.) "Now 
 that's the Legion all over. I wonder why the people 
 here can't box like Christians instead of rolling 
 about like pigs. You've licked him, though. And 
 that's all right." 
 
62 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 The man I had " fought " with rose with some 
 difficulty and walked up to me. We shook 
 hands. . . . 
 
 " You were in the right when you ordered me 
 off your bed," he said. " Parbleu, that was a good 
 idea with the stone. Eh, you'll be a good l^gion- 
 naire very soon. We men of the Legion quarrel 
 often, but at heart we're always comrades. C'est 
 la Legion! I propose we return to our quarters 
 again. ..." 
 
 And in the room we brushed the dust from each 
 other's uniforms, like old friends. . . . 
 
 " You're tired, I guess," said the bugler with a 
 grin. " Let's go and have a litre." 
 
 I had no objection. 
 
 "I am paying for this," he declared, as we 
 crossed the drill-ground. 
 
 The regimental canteen was in a small building 
 in a corner of the barrack square. We opened the 
 door and I at least must have looked very much 
 surprised. There was an awful noise in the little 
 room. A great many soldiers were talking and 
 laughing and singing and yelling in many lan- 
 guages ; in German, French, English, Italian and 
 Spanish there was the jingle of many bottles and 
 glasses. As we entered a German was singing : 
 
 Trinken wir noch ein Tropfchen 
 Aus dem kleinen Henkeltopfchen, 
 Oh, Suss . . . a . . . na ! 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 63 
 
 In sharp marching rhythm a Frenchman sang the 
 refrain of one of the Legion's songs : 
 
 Le sac, ma foi, toujours au dos . . . 
 
 The canteen was crowded. Hundreds of l^gion- 
 naires in white fatigue uniforms or in blue jackets 
 sat on the long benches, drinking, laughing. On 
 the wooden tables bottles stood in long rows and 
 deep red wine sparkled in the glasses. 
 
 " There's no room here," I said. 
 
 Smith grinned in answer : " Room ? Nom d'un 
 petard, what do we want room for ? The litre 
 is the main thing, sonny ! " 
 
 Pushing through the crowd he reached the bar 
 and held up a forefinger with a serious face. This 
 seemed to be a well-known signal to the young 
 woman behind the bar. Without saying a word 
 she took three copper pieces from the bugler, giving 
 him in exchange a full bottle of wine and two 
 glasses. "Madame la Cantiniere" could not be 
 over twenty years old. Like a queen seated on her 
 throne she held sway behind her bar and ruled the 
 crowd of noisy, yelling legionnaires in quiet 
 authority, imposing and comical at the same 
 time. 
 
 Madame la Cantiniere was the sutler of the 
 Foreign Legion. Old tradition demands that 
 a woman should keep the Legion's canteen. 
 " Madame la Cantiniere de la Legion " usually is 
 married, but she is the official head of the canteen 
 and not her husband. The business belongs to her. 
 On the march and in the field she wears the blue 
 
64 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 sutler's uniform and follows the regiment with her 
 little sutler's waggon. 
 
 On a bench in the corner Smith found seats for 
 us, and had two big glasses filled (the Legion does 
 not waste time drinking out of small wineglasses ! ) 
 had the glasses filled before we sat down. 
 
 " Here's luck," he said. " There's no such 
 thing as luck in this place, but one keeps on wishing 
 for it just the same. Here's luck, Dutchy ! " 
 
 He emptied his glass at a gulp, wiping his soft 
 fair moustache in great satisfaction. And he 
 refilled his glass at once. 
 
 " The wine's good. And that's all right. Sonny, 
 there are miles and miles of vineyards round this 
 here Sidi-bel- Abbes. The hilly ground near the 
 Thessala mountains is a single large vineyard. There 
 are times in Algeria when they let the wine run 
 on the street. It's so plentiful and cheap that 
 it isn't worth the casks. There would be no 
 Legion, I tell you, if it wasn't for the cheap 
 wine!" 
 
 With wondering eyes I surveyed the men in the 
 canteen and the canteen itself. The smoke of 
 many hundreds of cigarettes filled the place with a 
 heavy bluish vapour. The noise was indescribable. 
 One had to yell to be understood by one's neigh- 
 bour, a quietly spoken* word would have been lost in 
 the turmoil. Everybody was yelling and everybody 
 seemed to be in high glee. The legionnaires were 
 having what they considered a good time. They 
 jumped on the tables, kicking and dancing, jingled 
 their glasses, threw empty bottles about and made 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 65 
 
 fun of everybody and everything. Every minute 
 the uproar increased. These hard-faced, hard-eyed 
 men were like children at some forbidden game, 
 trying to get as much fun as possible while the 
 teacher was away. 
 
 Suddenly a man with a wonderfully clear and 
 strong voice began singing a love-song. Noise and 
 tumult ceased at once. I listened in amazement. 
 A legionnaire sang for his comrades, in a beautiful 
 tenor voice, in a voice reminding me of great 
 singers I had heard long ago. A poor devil of a 
 legionnaire possessed a voice many a singer would 
 have envied. He sang a French song, every verse 
 closing pitifully : 
 
 L'amour m'a rendu fou. . . . 
 
 The song of a lover who had loved and lost, a 
 song of love and ladies, of love's delights and 
 love's misery, sung in the canteen of the Foreign 
 Legion. 
 
 With burning eyes I looked at the listening 
 throng of men in red and blue until I saw nothing 
 but their shadowy outlines like a far-away fata 
 Morgana I was lost in a dream of memories. 
 
 Absolute quiet reigned. The song held these 
 men of rough life and rougher manners spellbound ; 
 the glorious mellow voice, now clear as a trumpet, 
 now low and sweet as a woman's caress, must have 
 appealed to every heart. The song was at an end : 
 
 L'amour m'a rendu fou. . . . 
 
 For a moment, for a few seconds, all remained 
 hushed. And then one would think that these 
 
 E 
 
66 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 men were ashamed of having been so soft-hearted. 
 A legionnaire jumped on a table and yelled : 
 
 " Silence. . . . No more fool songs for us ! Vive 
 le litre ! " 
 
 " Le litre ! "... a hundred men roared. The 
 shouting and the uproar and the noise commenced 
 anew. Blacky, the negro, had come in and was 
 soon dancing the dance of his race. He was a 
 master of the turnings and twistings of the cake- 
 walk. There were universal yells of appreciation 
 as he bent backwards, high-stepping grotesquely. 
 Blacky was much applauded and seemed to be a 
 very happy nigger. Madame la Cantiniere did a 
 roaring trade. The copper pieces were continually 
 jingling on the tin-covered surface of the bar. La 
 Cantiniere was a very busy woman this evening, 
 passing many hundreds of wine bottles to her thirsty 
 clientele of legionnaires. Glasses were broken, 
 pieces of glass lay everywhere on the tables and on 
 the floor, and here and there little red pools of 
 wine had formed. The fun grew fast and furious 
 and the noise almost unbearable. 
 
 My friend the bugler had emptied glass after 
 glass and was in high good humour. 
 
 " Why, it is the regiment's holiday ! " he 
 laughed. 
 
 The " fifth day " it was pay-day. The Legion's 
 humour called pay-day the regimental holiday. 
 This humour was somewhat grim in view of the 
 fact that pay in the Legion meant but five centimes 
 a day, twenty-five centimes for the pay-roll period 
 of five days. Twenty-five centimes are almost 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 67 
 
 exactly five cents in American, or twopence-half- 
 penny in English money. 
 
 So the Legion's " holiday " was at the bottom of 
 all the noise and fun in the canteen ! These men in 
 the Legion measured the passing of time by their 
 miserable pay-days only. Such a fifth day marked 
 the glorious epoch when two comrades could buy 
 exactly five " litres " of wine for their joint pay. 
 Certainly such frivolity punished itself: there was 
 no money left for the next five days' tobacco. So 
 wise men in the Legion buy the customary package 
 of tobacco for three sous, and drink but one bottle 
 of wine every five days. This is what the soldier 
 of the Foreign Legion works for : One bottle of 
 wine and one package of tobacco every five 
 days ! 
 
 Shrilly a signal sounded through the noise: 
 lights out ! Madame la Cantiniere held up her hand, 
 made a funny little bow, and said with a smile : 
 
 " Bonsoir, messieurs. Good night, gentlemen." 
 
 The Legion teaches obedience. . . . In a very few 
 seconds the canteen was empty and everybody was 
 hurrying across the drill-ground to quarters. 
 
 When roll-call had been finished in our quarters 
 and everybody had gone to bed, I quietly left the 
 room. Sleep did not appeal to me that night. 
 The still of night lay over the barrack-yard. The 
 white moonlight shone on the bare walls of the 
 barracks. The stars of far south glittered in their 
 trembling beauty. I stared up into the splendour 
 
68 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 of the heavens and brooded over happiness far 
 away passed dead, . . . 
 
 I heard footsteps and saw a shadow moving 
 somewhere on the other side. And over there a 
 trembling awkward voice sang softly : 
 
 L'amour m'a rendu fou. . . . 
 
 Far into the night I crouched in a corner of the 
 Legion's barrack-yard. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The first days, the first weeks of life in the Legion 
 were quite sufficient to render me immune against 
 strange things and strange sights. Sometimes it 
 seemed to me as if my nerves were quite dulled. 
 Every day brought monstrous sights and hideous 
 impressions. I shuddered at unheard-of things and 
 wondered at these strange specimens of humanity. 
 But the next moment some new horror made me 
 forget what I had just seen. 
 
 In a few minutes' walk with the bugler round the 
 barrack- yard one could meet with a variety of sights 
 like the following : 
 
 A legionnaire ran past us, shrieking in extreme 
 pain, splashed with blood. He had cut off the 
 forefinger and middle finger of his right hand so as 
 to be unfit for active service. 
 
 A poor crippled Arab, bent with age, stopped 
 when he saw us. He was evidently on his way to 
 the kitchen buildings to beg for food. In his hands 
 he carried a Standard oil-can. A Standard oil-tin 
 as receptacle for food in connection with an Arab, 
 Algeria and the Foreign Legion struck me as some- 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 69 
 
 thing distinctly new. But there was more to follow. 
 In very broken German the Arab addressed us : 
 
 " Gut' Tag, legionnaires. Cigarette ! Ick sein 
 deutsch Magdeburg gewesen 1 870." 
 
 The man had fought in the great Franco-German 
 war and had been in Magdeburg as a prisoner of war ! 
 
 Hardly had I recovered from my surprise when 
 a passing legionnaire made me stare in horror. The 
 man had the grinning image of a skull tattooed on 
 his forehead ! He smiled at my frightened face and 
 was evidently very pleased at the impression he had 
 made. I remember saying to the bugler how 
 horrible it was that a man should disfigure his face 
 for life in such a manner, and I remember that 
 Smith only shrugged his shoulders in reply. 
 
 " Why, that's nothing," he said. " Tattooing of 
 that kind is quite customary in the Battalion of the 
 Disciplined." 
 
 I could not agree with the bugler, I could not see 
 a mere freak in this horrible tattoo-mark. To me 
 it spoke of hope lost for ever, of a life so dreadful 
 that a man no longer cared whether he was dis- 
 figured or not. 
 
 Pleased with the notice he attracted, the legion- 
 naire with the skull on his forehead walked up to 
 us and spoke to me : 
 
 " Eh, recruit, do you want to see something that 
 very old legionnaires only have got ? " 
 
 He showed me a tobacco-pouch, apparently made 
 of fine soft leather : 
 
 " This is made of the breast of an Arab woman," 
 said the man of the skull. " It is a very good 
 
70 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 tobacco-pouch. Made it myself. There are only 
 seven in the whole regiment now. Chose n'est-ce 
 pas ? That is something worth seeing ! " 
 
 With a grin of vanity he walked away. 
 
 " Tobacco-pouch an Arab woman's breast my 
 God, what is the meaning of this ? " I asked of 
 the bugler. 
 
 Smith told me all about those horrible pouches. 
 The man of the skull had not lied. During the 
 last insurrection of Arabs in Algeria, in grim warfare 
 far in the South, Arabian women had horribly 
 mutilated the bodies of legionnaires and inflicted 
 horrible tortures on the wounded. The soldiers of 
 the Legion, maddened, thirsting for revenge, gave 
 quarter to no Arab woman during those times. 
 They retaliated in kind. ... Of the horrible deeds 
 they committed the dreadful tobacco-pouches gave 
 evidence. 
 
 On the same day I witnessed for the first time 
 the prisoners' march of punishment. I stood 
 aghast. 
 
 Behind the quarters of the fourth company, in 
 a small square between barrack building and wall, 
 about thirty men were marching in a continuous 
 circle, to the sharp commands of a corporal : 
 
 " A droit droit ; a droit droit ; right about, 
 march ; right about, march." 
 
 The prisoners marched round their narrow circle 
 in fast quick-step, almost at a run, with backs 
 deeply bent. Their knapsacks were filled with 
 sand and stones, every man carrying a burden of 
 from seventy to eighty pounds. All the prisoners 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 71 
 
 had a hard strained look on their faces. Their fatigue 
 uniforms were torn and soiled. Guards with fixed 
 bayonets stood at the corners of the square, guard- 
 ing the marching prisoners. 
 
 The term prisoner must not be misunderstood. 
 These men were not criminals. The legionnaires 
 marching in the " peloton des hommes punis " had 
 been punished with a term of imprisonment for 
 small offences in the matters of discipline. They 
 were not only put into prison, but also had to 
 march on their ridiculous march of punishment 
 for three hours every day, the stones in their knap- 
 sacks causing bad sores on their backs. These 
 men, punished for some paltry military offence, 
 were certainly treated as if they were criminals of 
 the worst description. 
 
 I tried to imagine what I should feel and what I 
 should do if a sandsack were put on my back and 
 I were driven round in this maddening march. . . . 
 It was dangerous to think of these things. 
 
 " Allez, let's go," said the bugler. " We all go 
 to prison some time or another and it's not right 
 to stare at the prisoners. They feel bad enough 
 as it is. 
 
 Stranger than the strange surroundings were 
 many of the men of the Legion themselves. 
 
 On the bunk opposite mine, the little paste- 
 board card customary in the Legion described the 
 owner as follows : 
 
 JEAN RASSEDIN 
 12429 
 
 SOLD AT PREMIERE CLASSE. 
 
72 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Rassedin was a Belgian. He worked as clerk in 
 the regimental offices. Shortly before " soup-time " 
 in the afternoon his day's work was finished. Then 
 he would come running into quarters, tearing off 
 his old white barrack uniform as fast as he possibly 
 could, throwing his things pell-mell on the bed. In 
 a very few moments he had put on the uniform 
 prescribed for town. For the "soup" he didn't 
 care. He never had his meals in quarters. He 
 went away at once after he had changed his 
 uniform and never returned before two o'clock in 
 the morning, having a " certificate of permanent 
 permission" to leave the barracks. His manner 
 was haughty. If one of his comrades tried to 
 speak to him about something or other, he usually 
 turned away without answering. Or he said : 
 
 " M'en fou I don't care for anything. Leave 
 me alone." * 
 
 Monsieur Rassedin, legionnaire, took his meals 
 in the best hotel of the town and spent more money 
 than any other man in Sidi-bel- Abbes. Rassedin 
 was a rich man. From the standpoint of the 
 Foreign Legion, his wealth was the wealth of 
 Croesus. He had been a non-commissioned officer 
 in a Belgian cavalry regiment, had deserted for 
 reasons unknown and joined the Legion. After 
 being a legionnaire for a time, he got the news 
 of the death of a rich relative, who had left him all 
 his wealth. ... So Monsieur Rassedin, legionnaire, 
 had become rich. He always carried a few thou- 
 sands francs about him. Three men of the 
 company were employed by him to keep his things 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 73 
 
 in order and to do all the cleaning and polishing 
 for him. In the regimental office he paid the other 
 clerks to do his work. He naturally preferred 
 reading novels to copying lengthy reports. As he 
 could afford to pay substitutes, the thing could 
 easily be done. His family had succeeded in 
 getting him a pardon granted for deserting. 
 Monsieur Rassedin could have gone back to Bel- 
 gium long ago, but he did not care to return to his 
 native country. As soon as he had finished his 
 term of five years' Legion service, he signed on 
 again for another five years. 
 
 The reason ? 
 
 " Disease," Smith said, when I asked him. 
 There certainly was no question concerning men or 
 things of the Legion that the man from California 
 could not answer. " The poor devil's suffering from 
 syphilis. Got it in Madagascar.- I asked hhn once 
 why in thunder he did not get out of this confounded 
 Legion. 
 
 " ' Bugler,' " he said in answer. ' You are an old 
 legionnaire and I don't want to have trouble with 
 you. But remember : You go your own way, 
 and I'll go mine. Don't trouble me with your 
 fool's remarks. There is poison in my body and in 
 a few years I shall be very sick. No, I prefer 
 putting a bullet through my brains in the Legion 
 to returning to my country and then having to 
 peg out. You'll die somewhere in the sand, my 
 friend I shall die strictly in my own fashion. 
 What is the difference? Now come on, bugler. 
 Want a bottle of champagne ? ' " 
 
74 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Everybody in Sidi-bel-Abbes knew Rassedin, 
 even the little black children in the streets. Many 
 a time he used to throw franc pieces amongst them. 
 
 In quarters Rassedin hardly spoke to anybody. 
 His comrades were afraid of him. He was a man 
 of enormous strength and had the reputation of 
 fighting on the least provocation. But he could 
 be very good-natured. Hardly a day passed with- 
 out some old soldiers of the company coming to 
 our quarters in search of Rassedin. They would 
 simply rub their throats in pantomime : 
 
 " Rassedin, tant d' soif. Heap big thirst." 
 
 Then Rassedin grinned and searched his pockets 
 for copper pieces. . . . 
 
 Then there was Latour, a Frenchman, serving 
 his second year. Daily he received letters, a very 
 unusual thing in the Foreign Legion ; love-letters 
 from a woman who was waiting for him five long 
 years. Latour, who had committed a crime in 
 France, expiated his deed in the Foreign Legion. 
 He served solely for the purpose of "rehabilitation." 
 
 Sentences of the Civil Court are in France 
 entered in the personal papers of the criminal. 
 Without his papers he cannot get work. Naturally 
 employers are shy of taking men who have been 
 in conflict with the law and such a man very 
 seldom succeeds in finding work. It is a barbarous 
 system. Ten years must elapse before such a man 
 is considered rehabilitated and " clean papers " are 
 issued to him. If a man is willing to serve in the 
 Foreign Legion, however, the term of rehabilitation 
 is shortened to five years, and after five years' 
 
THE LEGION'S BARRACKS 75 
 
 service new papers are given to him. He has then 
 a new start in civil life after five years instead of 
 ten. 
 
 Like many other French legionnaires, Latour was 
 serving for rehabilitation. 
 
 The strangest man of all, however, seemed to me 
 this man Smith, American, legionnaire, philosopher. 
 I have always believed, and believe yet, that he 
 actually loved the Legion, that he could not part 
 from the strange life there. He could speak 
 Arabic like a native. Many a time when we were 
 lying in our bunks, he would mumble to himself in 
 Arabic for hours. If I, in curiosity, asked him 
 what he was about, he would say : 
 
 " Oh nothing, Dutchy. I'm a bit off my base. 
 I very often am, you know." 
 
 But occasionally he would straighten up and sit 
 down beside me, talking of strange things, reciting 
 whole chapters of the Koran. Like this : 
 
 " Well, sonny, know anything about the Chapter 
 of the Prophet's Stallions ? " 
 
 " You don't ? Listen. " 
 
 " When of an evening the stallions, standing on 
 three feet and placing the tip of their fourth foot 
 upon the ground, were brought before the Prophet, 
 he said : ' I have loved the love of things of this 
 earth more than I have loved all thoughts of the 
 things of heaven, and I have wasted the time in 
 feasting my eyes on these horses. Bring them to 
 me.' And when the horses were brought to him, 
 he began cutting off their legs, one by one, saying : 
 6 All' il AUah. 
 
76 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 "Yes, Dutchy, the Koran's somethinginteresting." 
 Many chapters of the Koran I have learned from 
 Smith. 
 
 Such things happened every day. But soon the 
 enormities lost their power of fascination. A host 
 of new impressions were forced upon me, until the 
 senses were dulled and one soon got wonderfully 
 indifferent absolutely indifferent. . . . 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MILITARY VALUE OF THE FOREIGN 
 REGIMENTS 
 
 A day's work as a recruit : Allez, hurry up : The 
 Legion's etiquette : A morning's run : The " cercle 
 d'enfer" and the lack of soap : The main object of 
 the Legion's training : Splendid marchers : Indepen- 
 dent soldiers : Forty kilometres a day : Uniform, ac- 
 coutrements, baggage, victualling : The training of the 
 legionnaire in detail : The legionnaire as a practical 
 man : Specialties of the Legion : Programme for a week 
 in the Legion : The legionnaire as a labourer 
 
 WHEN in the twilight of awakening day the first 
 red-hot rays of African dawn penetrated through 
 the windows of our quarters, the " garde-chambre," 
 the man on duty there, arose noiselessly. He took 
 good care not to make a noise, not from any 
 delicacy of feeling on his part, but from the know- 
 ledge of the dire punishment which awaited him if he 
 inconsiderately disturbed the sleep of his comrades. 
 For the hours of sleep are a " Holy of Holies " to 
 the legionnaire. When Herr von Rader was on 
 duty for the first time, and in getting up made a 
 slight noise, boots (heavy military boots!) were 
 thrown at his head from all parts of the room, as a 
 somewhat urgent reminder to be quiet. 
 
 77 
 
 
78 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 In a few minutes the orderly returned from the 
 kitchen dragging with him a large earthenware jug, 
 lighted the petroleum lamp which hung in the 
 middle of the room, and his voice then sounded 
 loudly through the room : 
 
 "Aujus." (Sauce.) 
 
 The sauce was coffee, strong, black, excellent 
 coffee. Mechanically each legionnaire sat up in bed, 
 and leaning on his arm mechanically felt behind 
 him for the " quart," the tin mug, which hung on a 
 hook at the head of the bed, handing it to the 
 orderly, who went from bed to bed with his large 
 jug and poured out coffee. The strong mixture 
 soon dispelled all sleepiness, and when the shrill 
 trumpet-blasts of the " reveille' " sounded from the 
 barrack-yard, they all jumped out of bed. 
 
 Now began a " Tohuwabohu " (pandemonium) of 
 noise and hurrying to and fro. In half an hour the 
 recruits had to muster in the yard. Corporal 
 Wassermann, who liked to remain in bed until the 
 last moment, called out continually : 
 
 "Le e vez-vous done. Get up." 
 
 Then he thundered out the famous "Allez, schieb' 
 los ! " of the Legion. The curious term has been 
 introduced by German legionnaires and has passed 
 into the vocabulary of Algerian French. Not only 
 the soldiers continually used this funny mixture of 
 German and French, but Arabs and negro children 
 in the street, when they wanted to hurry each other 
 up, shrieked out : " Allez, schieb' los ! " 
 
 " Allez, schieb' los ! Pas du temps. No more 
 time ! " roared the corporal. The day began with 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 79 
 
 hurry and scurry. The primitive lavatory was on 
 the ground floor of the barracks and one was obliged 
 torun up and down four flights of stairs in order to 
 wash oneself. There was not a minute to spare. 
 The boots had to be brushed ; the blankets and 
 mattresses of the bed had to be folded neatly and 
 piled up at the foot of the bunk. Whilst this was 
 being done the orderly shouted excitedly : 
 
 " Quoi ! Nom de Dieu balayez au-dessous vos 
 lits ! " (Thunder and lightning ! Sweep up under 
 your beds.) 
 
 The etiquette of the Legion in these things holds 
 very strictly to old tradition ; every legionnaire had 
 to sweep under his bed, while the cleaning of the 
 i room was the work of the orderly on duty, who 
 could of course not begin this work until the floor 
 beneath the beds had been swept. That was the 
 reason of all the " Quois " and " Nom de Dieus ! " 
 The man had every cause to be excited and 
 angry. He had to drill like the others, and it was 
 no trifle to have to sweep a large room, to dust and 
 to fetch water; everything within ten minutes. 
 And it had all to be in tip-top order, for a few 
 minutes before commencing drill the colour-sergeant 
 inspected quarters and if anything was not in order 
 in the room the corporal was punished. 
 
 And when the corporal was punished, he of 
 course took care that his men were run in as 
 well. 
 
 Punctually at 6 A.M. we recruits mustered in the 
 barrack-yard in drill uniform : white linen suit, 
 blue sash, knapsack, cartridge-belt and rifle 
 
80 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 uniforms and leather trappings of shining bright- 
 ness. The almost pedantic cleanliness of the 
 Legion, the coquetry of each individual legionnaire 
 to put a certain amount of " chic " into his uniform, 
 was the first thing Corporal Wassermann's vanity 
 had taught us. 
 
 In the quick easy marching pace of the Legion 
 we went out to the " Plateau," a large open space 
 near the negro quarter, surrounded by olive-trees and 
 red African oaks. The yellow clayey ground was 
 stamped hard by the marching of many thousands 
 of legionnaires. On the one side of the " Plateau " 
 was the " village negre," the negro town. Close to 
 the drill-ground the mosque, in proud white splen- 
 dour, towered above the miserable, half-ruined huts 
 of the negro quarter, and hour by hour sounded 
 loudly from its minaret the priest's call to prayer : 
 
 AIT il AUah. God is great. . . ." 
 
 "Arre, arr go on, go on," yelled the Arabs, 
 who drove their heavily laden donkeys across the 
 place with much scolding and beating. By the 
 side of the donkeys, like the beasts, heavily bur- 
 dened, walked Arab women, the legs bare to above 
 the knee, but the face modestly covered as pre- 
 scribed by the teachings of the Prophet. Only a 
 small portion of the forehead was left free by the 
 veil, and this was painted with a bright red round 
 spot of henna, the sign of the married woman. 
 
 The Arabs glanced at us with timid side looks 
 and hastened to pass on. Half-naked Arab and 
 negro children raced about trying with comical 
 " grandezza " to imitate the martial steps, and 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 81 
 
 shouted Arab words at us which very likely were 
 gross insults, until Corporal Wassermann picked 
 up stones and drove them away. 
 
 " Formez les faisceaux. Sac a terre." (Pile arms. 
 Lay down your knapsacks.) 
 
 " Pas gymnastique ! " (At the double !) " En 
 avant. Marche ! " 
 
 With this the daily routine began. It was the 
 famous " Legion's breakfast," the lung-training of 
 " double time." 
 
 In the form of a wide square we went round the 
 drill-ground, five minutes, ten minutes un, deux, 
 un, deux always in sharp time. The corporal, a 
 splendid runner, ran at the head, teaching us the trick 
 on which everything depended here, to overcome 
 the critical moment of lung exhaustion, to get the 
 " second wind." Even if the breath came and went 
 in short pumping gasps, if the eyes pained, and one 
 commenced to stumble from exhaustion, one ran 
 on until the lungs had got used to the extra exer- 
 tion, until one had the feeling of being a machine, 
 and could go on running for ever. Then came the 
 command " A volonte' " (as you please) and a 
 race finished thirty minutes' exercise. 
 
 This is the Legion's breakfast. 
 
 It has cost many a man his lungs. 
 
 Pause. The tormented lungs worked in short 
 hard gasps. It was impossible to stand still. One 
 was obliged to walk up and down quickly in order 
 to gradually quieten the pumping lungs. 
 
 The body had to expend all the strength it 
 could in this morning drill. Swedish gymnastics, 
 
 F 
 
82 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " le boxe," formed the alternative to this doubling. 
 The training progressed very quickly. All the 
 recruits had served in some of the world's armies, 
 and the first rudiments of military wisdom had 
 been drilled into them long ago. Three-quarters 
 of my fellow-recruits were Germans, who did not 
 understand any French, and to whom the French 
 commands were Greek. Continual repetition was 
 here necessary. 
 
 " A gauche gauche means left about " explained 
 the corporal, and repeated it ten times, until 
 " gauche " had been mastered. The most neces- 
 sary French expressions were very quickly learnt 
 by this most natural of all methods. 
 
 A hot sun burned down on us. Ten times during 
 a single forenoon every stitch of clothes on one's 
 body was soaked with perspiration, and ten times 
 it dried again. In the pauses one stood about, 
 smoking hand-twisted cigarettes, the inevitable 
 cigarette of the Legion smoked in every free 
 moment, and by which the pause is measured 
 according to the old custom of the Legion ? The 
 pause was the duration of a cigarette. When the 
 corporal had finished smoking his cigarette he 
 slowly walked to a distance of about one or two 
 hundred metres and lifted his hand : 
 
 " A moi." 
 
 That meant we were to run up to him and 
 recommence work. 
 
 " I've never run so d d fast in all my life," was 
 
 Herr vonRader's continual lament. "I've an idea the 
 suckers here are mistaking me for an express train ! " 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 83 
 
 At 11 A.M. we marched back to barracks. 
 Knapsack and cartridge-belt were thrown into the 
 " paquetage," and dead tired we threw ourselves 
 upon our beds. But after a few short minutes, the 
 soup signal rang out from the barrack-yard. 
 
 "A la soupe, legionnaires, a la soupe, soupe, 
 soupe." 
 
 " Soupe ..." every one yelled. Woe if the 
 orderly of the room did not rush to the kitchen, 
 and woe if he did not reappear with the soup- 
 kettle in the twinkling of an eye ! In everything 
 connected with food a genuine legionnaire stands 
 no nonsense he has too often suffered starvation 
 on marches and campaigns not to appreciate "la 
 gamelle." 
 
 The morning soup, the first of the two daily 
 meals, was the same every day : Bread soup, boiled 
 together, with potatoes and vegetables, and a piece 
 of meat. With it the grey- white French military 
 bread was served, and every other day a quarter of 
 a litre of heavy red wine. The food was eaten off 
 tin plates at the two long tables in our quarters. 
 There was, however, not room enough for all at the 
 tables. The question of seats the Legion's etiquette 
 decided ; the privilege of sitting down at table 
 belonged to the old legionnaires. 
 
 After the soup the kitchen corporal rushed from 
 room to room : 
 
 " Aux patates aux pommes de terre ! " (To the 
 potatoes !) 
 
 The whole company marched down to the 
 kitchen, and standing in a large circle peeled the 
 
84 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 day's supply of potatoes. Every one had to peel 
 he who had no pocket-knife had to make shift with 
 a sharpened spoon-handle ! The purchase of a 
 pocket-knife was an exorbitant luxury on a wage of 
 five centimes a day. . . . 
 
 In the afternoon the old legionnaires went off 
 on long marches or to field practice, or were 
 ordered to " eorve'e," to work with spade and pick, 
 whilst the recruits had instruction. At 5 o'clock in 
 the afternoon, after a second " soupe," which was 
 exactly like the first, the official free time of the 
 legionnaire began. 
 
 But in reality the most tiresome work of all now 
 began cleaning and washing ! 
 
 Rifle cleaning, cleaning of uniforms, polishing the 
 leather parts of the uniform. Leather ! Even now 
 I still think with a gentle shudder of the leather of 
 the Legion, of the cartridge-belt and pouch ! There 
 is such a lot of trouble and work connected with 
 these leather belts ! The vainest " neuvaine " does 
 not spend so much time over the whole of her 
 toilette as does the legionnaire over the polishing 
 of his cartridge-belt ! The procedure was un- 
 utterably ridiculous, in the highest degree pedantic 
 and unpractical, being irksome beyond all measure. 
 You melted black wax over a match and put it 
 on the leather. Then this wax had to be properly 
 rubbed in with a flat piece of wood, till it was 
 evenly distributed. Then began the real polishing 
 with an arsenal of different rags. It took two hours 
 to make cartridge-belt and pouch shine properly, 
 till the legionnaire's vanity was satisfied. . . . 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 85 
 
 Unpractical and old-fashioned as the " astiquage " 
 is, it belongs to the etiquette of the Legion and 
 is sacred. I had a special hatred of it and con- 
 sidered myself infinitely smart when I bought a 
 bottle of leather dressing and simply painted my 
 belts with it instead of working at them for two 
 hours. It looked very well and was at all events 
 more durable. 
 
 But Corporal Wassermann almost fainted when 
 he saw it. He tore the belt out of my hand, and 
 in a fit of rage ran round to all the men's rooms, to 
 show the other corporals what horrible things 
 happen in this sinful world. A painted cartridge- 
 belt! The old soldiers of the companies came 
 running up and with many " merdes " and " noms 
 d'un chien" surveyed in petrified astonishment 
 the greenhorn who had been so audacious as to 
 attempt to supplant the sacred " astiquage " of the 
 Legion by painting ! 
 
 " But it is more practical," 1 said at length to the 
 fuming corporal in the vain attempt to appease 
 him. 
 
 " Mais, ca ne marche pas ! " he shrieked. " That 
 will never do. If you were an old soldier and not 
 a recruit, you would be locked up for ten days ! " 
 
 The greatest plague, however, was the washing. 
 The white uniform had of course to be washed 
 every day. In the back barrack-yard was the 
 " lavabo," a large reservoir built of concrete, with 
 cold running water, called in legionnaire's wit 
 " cercle d'enfer" (Hell's circle). Every free hour the 
 legionnaires stood shoulder to shoulder around the 
 
86 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 reservoir, in a large circle, shirt-sleeves turned 
 up, with flushed and perspiring heads. Behind 
 those washing other legionnaires waited patiently 
 until a place at the reservoir became vacant. 
 There they washed, rubbed, beat and rinsed until 
 darkness set in. The white linen uniforms, the 
 underclothing, and the linings of the uniforms had 
 to be washed in cold water and with little soap. 
 The small piece of soap which each man received 
 once a month was not nearly enough, and few 
 things were railed at as much as the lack of soap. 
 Scarcely had one turned round, when lo and 
 behold ! the soap was gone. 
 
 Nothing represented the poverty of the Legion 
 so much as this "lavabo." The man who 
 possessed a brush, an ordinary "washing-brush," 
 and with this could simplify the work of washing, 
 was as much envied as if he had been a millionaire 
 to lend such a brush was looked upon as an act 
 of the greatest friendship ! For drying purposes 
 lines were hung up near by, and when one had 
 hung up the wet clothes, one waited patiently 
 until they were dry. A man who was careless 
 or impatient, and who did not do so but went 
 away, might afterwards survey the place on the 
 line where his washing had been hanging the 
 wash itself was gone, had disappeared, been spirited 
 away. 
 
 With the half-dry wash one returned to the room, 
 laid one's blanket on the table and "ironed" 
 trousers and tunics by smoothing them with the 
 sharp edge of the drinking-mug until they were 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 87 
 
 free of creases. The poor devil of a legionnaire 
 thus needed an hour for a piece of work which 
 could have been done in a few minutes with the 
 help of a flat-iron. But the foreign legionnaire is 
 far too poor to possess such a treasure as a flat- 
 iron. 
 
 The object of our training was twofold : the 
 training for prodigious marching performances, and 
 the education of the individual to complete military 
 independence. The working programme of the 
 Foreign Legion, the whole of its military value, is 
 embodied in these two ideas : 
 
 Brilliant marchers independent soldiers. 
 
 In addition to these two advantages we have 
 the financial consideration, on which the Foreign 
 Legion's existence depends the advantage of cheap, 
 splendidly trained mercenaries, with whom the 
 most daring military operations can be undertaken 
 without consideration of the sacrifice of life involved. 
 No nation, no parliament asks for an account of the 
 dead. The Legion marches and acts independently, 
 dies without attracting attention. 
 
 The legionnaire can march. Forty kilometres a 
 day is the fixed minimum performance. He must 
 be able to do that, day by day, without interruption, 
 without a day of rest, for weeks on end. That is 
 the object of his training from the very beginning 
 the daily " pas gymnastique," the " double timing " 
 in the long springy running stride of the Legion, 
 the initiatory practice for marching. Several times 
 
88 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 every week the men must make practice marches over 
 a distance of at least twenty-four kilometres, with full 
 equipment, at the Legion's pace of five kilometres 
 per hour, which has always remained the same. 
 The only object of the practice marches is to teach 
 the recruits steady quick marching. They neither 
 end with a small manoeuvre, nor have they exercises 
 such as scouting, or exploring the country by means 
 of patrols. It is nothing but simple marching at a 
 prescribed pace, a tramping onwards to fulfil a given 
 task. The "marches militaires," as the practice 
 marches are called, usually commence at midday, 
 when the sun is at its hottest, after a hard morning's 
 drill, so as to represent a practical exercise. On 
 one of the military roads which branch off from 
 Sidi-bel- Abbes in all directions, the march goes on 
 until the twelfth kilometre is reached, and then the 
 men are marched back again. 
 
 On the march a legionnaire may carry his rifle as 
 he pleases, either shouldered or by the strap, just as 
 is most comfortable to him ; he may take off his 
 knapsack if it hurts him, and carry it in his hand ; 
 he is not ordered when to open his coat or when to 
 shut it. The officers do not worry the marching 
 legionnaires with paltry orders, and they are allowed 
 to sing or to smoke as they please. When there is 
 a large puddle on the road, or when one side of the 
 road is stony, the column turns off of its own accord 
 and marches where the road is best. In the course 
 of many a whole-day march I have not heard a 
 single word from the officers, no orders except the 
 short whistle signals, which mean : " Column, halt !" 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 89 
 
 and "Column, forward march!" As soon as the 
 signal sounds for a halt, the front rows form front 
 without orders, and every man sits or lies down 
 during the halt as suits him best. The marches are 
 regulated by the one principle : March as you like, 
 with crooked back or toes turned in, if you think 
 that nice or better, but march ! 
 
 It is always being drummed into the legionnaire 
 that he is intended for nothing else in this world 
 except for marching. If the pangs of hunger are 
 gnawing at his stomach or thirst parches his tongue, 
 that is so much the worse for him, but is no sort of 
 a reason for his not marching on ! He may be 
 tired, dead tired, completely exhausted but he 
 must not stop marching. If his feet are bleeding 
 and the soles burn like fire, that is very sad but 
 the marching pace must not be slackened. The 
 sun may burn till his senses are all awhirl, he must 
 go on. His task in life is to march. The greatest 
 crime that he can commit is to fail on the march. 
 There is no such thing as an impossible marching 
 performance for the regiment of foreigners. Each 
 individual is inoculated with the one idea, it is 
 hammered into him, that he has to march as long as 
 he can control his legs. And when he can no longer 
 control them, then he must at least try to crawl. 
 
 It is a merciless system, which, however, produces 
 wonderful soldiers. 
 
 Inseparable from the march of the Legion is the 
 baggage of the legionnaire. 
 
 The French foreign soldier marches with an 
 equipment called the " tenue de campagne 
 
90 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 d'Afrique." He wears splendidly made laced boots, 
 white duck trousers held together at the ankles by 
 means of leather gaiters, and the " capote," the 
 heavy blue military cloak. The cloak is put on 
 over the shirt, without any coat underneath, and 
 its tails are buttoned back behind, so that thighs 
 and knees are left free, and an untrammelled gait 
 rendered possible, just as with the French soldiers. 
 The only difference is that the legionnaire wears 
 the "ceinture" round the body, the blue sash, 
 about four metres long, of fine woollen cloth, which 
 not only gives the body a firm support, but also 
 does service as a tropical belt, indispensable in 
 the sudden changes of temperature in Africa, 
 where the glowing hot day is followed by an icy 
 cold night. The red " kepi " has a white cover, 
 and, as further protection against the sun, a thin 
 linen cloth the " couvre-nuque," neck-cloth is 
 buttoned on to the "kepi," covering the neck, 
 ears and cheeks. There are consequently in the 
 Legion comparatively few cases of sunstroke, 
 which may sound rather surprising. 
 
 He carries a rifle and a bayonet, two hundred to 
 four hundred cartridges, cartridge pouch and knap- 
 sack, and the " sac." This knapsack is made of 
 black varnished canvas with a unique system of 
 straps, and has hardly any weight of its own. On 
 the march it contains two complete uniforms, the 
 legionnaire's linen and polishing cloths, partly in 
 the inside and partly in " ballots," in carefully pre- 
 scribed bundles. Tent canvas and blanket encircle 
 the knapsack in a long roll. The collapsible tent- 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 91 
 
 sticks are stuck in at the side. On the top is 
 fastened the " gamelle " and fuel for the bivouac 
 fire. In addition each man also carries one ;of the 
 saucepans of the company or pioneer's implements. 
 Knapsack, rifle and equipment altogether weigh 
 almost fifty kilogrammes ; no soldier of any other 
 army carries such a load. 
 
 With this kit he marches over sand under a 
 burning sun, on very scanty rations. In barracks 
 he gets a cup of black coffee on rising in the morn- 
 ing. At ten o'clock he gets his forenoon soup, at 
 about 5 P.M. his afternoon soup. Two meals a day, 
 both consisting of soup, in which are boiled all 
 sorts of vegetables, a small piece of meat, and now 
 and then a special vegetable as an extra, spinach, 
 carrots or such-like. With this he eats the French 
 military bread, a grey kind of bread which is very 
 easily digested, undoubtedly nutritious, sufficient 
 and palatable. When marching, however, the meat 
 rations are dropped, and food consists almost ex- 
 clusively of rice and macaroni. As a substitute 
 for the bread he is served with a kind of hard ship's 
 biscuit. 
 
 Marching always commences in the early hours 
 after midnight. It then goes on uninterruptedly, 
 with the hourly halts for rest of five minutes, until 
 the task has been completed. This is a peculiarity 
 of the Legion from which there is no deviation, 
 even when in the field. Be the distance ever so 
 great, it is covered in one march. 
 
 The Legionnaire marches. . . . 
 
92 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 The Foreign Legion, as an old troop of mer- 
 cenaries, works like a machine. The newly re- 
 cruited human material is quickly adapted to the 
 old, faultlessly working parts. In barrack life and 
 on the drill-ground the officers stand in the back- 
 ground. For these stages they are superfluous, 
 and their work is confined to paper reports or to an 
 occasional visit to the drill-ground. While I was 
 serving in the Foreign Legion I only came into 
 close touch with the officers of my company on the 
 march. We scarcely knew them ; the captain came 
 into the company's office in the forenoon, and was 
 not seen again for the rest of the day. The educa- 
 tion of the men and their whole training is left to 
 the non-commissioned officers, above all to the 
 corporals. They were themselves once trained in 
 the same service and possess, with rare exceptions, 
 great talent in training their men to be indepen- 
 dent. 
 
 The system of the marches is brutal ; the l^gion- 
 naire must expend what there is in him of vital 
 energy and human strength, but in the military 
 service he is treated as a soldier, as a valuable 
 soldier, whom one does not worry with pedantic 
 demands and paltry red-tape affairs, but treats him 
 in a sensible, I might say loving, manner, in order 
 to draw from him the utmost he is capable of. 
 From the military point of view he is really well 
 treated. 
 
 During my training I did not once hear a word 
 of bad language, and if a strong expression was 
 used, it was done in fun. Every morning and 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 93 
 
 every afternoon nine recruits of the eleventh were 
 taken to a secluded spot, a shady avenue near the 
 Plateau, and were taken in hand by a corporal and 
 a legionnaire, premiere classe. 
 
 Every movement was explained to us, the pur- 
 pose of every manoeuvre illustrated precisely, so 
 that we knew why we had to make this or thtM 
 exercise. The smallest details were all explained. 
 It was not considered a crime if in lining-up one 
 man was a trifle farther forward than the other ; 
 but if any man was awkward at boxing, that was 
 considered a very serious thing, and he was drilled 
 by himself until he grasped the fact that boxing 
 was a most important matter, which sharpened wits 
 and nerves. In the pauses the instructors spoke 
 to us and explained a hundred little things. The 
 gun had to be carried across the shoulder in a 
 certain place, because that was the easiest way of 
 carrying and balancing it. We were obliged to 
 work hard, but never had the feeling of being 
 bothered with anything unnecessary. It was prac- 
 tical work, the reason for which every one under- 
 stood. 
 
 This was repeated on a larger scale when drilling 
 in companies. Everything was directed towards 
 the practical and useful ; one was not drilled me- 
 chanically, but by practical methods. The company 
 drill was hardly ever conducted by the officers, but 
 by the colour-sergeant of the company. 
 
 Here the training of the individual to indepen- 
 dence stepped in. In the course of the day every 
 man was given a problem which he had to solve : 
 
94 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 the estimating of distances, the search for cover or 
 ambush. . . . For instance, ten men were told off 
 as a scout-patrol, and had to reach a certain spot 
 without being seen. At the goal the whole com- 
 pany assembled, and every legionnaire could watch 
 for himself how the scout-patrol carried out their 
 ti,sk. Their movements were criticised by the 
 watching legionnaires ; in great excitement they 
 debated if another way did not offer better cover, 
 or if the patrol should not have remained longer at 
 one point to get a wider range of view for their 
 observations. This military criticism was looked 
 upon with favour, and sergeants and corporals regu- 
 larly took part in the discussion. This introduced 
 into the hard service a suggestion of sport and 
 individual interest, stirring the ambition and giving 
 interest to the work. For all that the general 
 work of the troop was not neglected and drill was 
 not despised when necessary. To my mind the 
 firing discipline, for instance, was perfect. 
 
 " Being practical " was the leading principle of 
 the whole training. Each man knew the length of 
 his steps and knew that he required 117 or 120 or 
 125 steps to walk 100 metres. In interesting in- 
 structive lessons in the field the legionnaire learnt 
 not only the rudiments of map-reading, but was 
 taught to illustrate a report by a sketch, if it was 
 only a rough one. The corporals took special 
 pains with the talented and educated legionnaires, 
 stirring their pride and ambition to achieve some- 
 thing out of the common. One had the feeling of 
 working for a sporting competition. On clear, 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 95 
 
 starry nights the company was often alarmed and 
 marched into the surrounding country of Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes. Far out in the open field we stopped. 
 These exercises were conducted by our first 
 lieutenant. He gathered the legionnaires round 
 him in a circle and explained to them the constel- 
 lations, their movements and their relation to each 
 other. This was repeated so often till even the 
 greatest dunce could find his bearings by means of 
 the Pole-star and the Great Bear. 
 
 Personal interest was brought into the soldier's 
 work. One became independent, one knew the 
 Why and the Wherefore. Again and again rifle- 
 pits were dug, and sporting ambition urged us 
 to work quicker than the next section. 
 
 There was equal competition at the frequent 
 drills in throwing up earthworks, and with wonder- 
 ful rapidity entrenchments were built up of haver- 
 sacks filled with sand. It was like watching a 
 match to see the " escouades," the different sections 
 of the company, endeavouring to be the first to 
 have their tent up. With one pull they had the 
 tent-cloth out of the knapsack, and fitted the sticks 
 together ; every one had his own piece of work 
 the one buttoned the tent canvas together, the 
 other stretched the sides down tight, and the next 
 one drove in the pegs. And like a miracle the little 
 tent grew out of the ground. My squad held the 
 record in tent-building with seventy seconds. It was 
 looked upon as a matter of honour to turn out 
 with the greatest speed and exactness, one was 
 proud of being able to form square on the 
 
96 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 march in a few seconds. One ran like mad at the 
 command "A genoux ! " an interesting manoeuvre, 
 the purpose of which was to save oneself from 
 bursting shells and volley fire. When the com- 
 mand "A genoux ! " (Down on the knees !) sounded 
 the whole line in long strides moved closely to- 
 gether, every single man fell on his knees and put 
 his head as far under the knapsack of the man in 
 front of him as possible, each one crowding close 
 to his neighbour. No head, no back was visible, 
 nothing but a compact mass of knapsacks. The 
 head of each man was protected by the knapsack 
 of the man in front, this and his own knapsack 
 protecting him from shells and shrapnel. The 
 " sac," with its contents of soft uniforms and under- 
 linen, was proof even against a rifle-bullet. 
 
 Everything was practical. All the bother with 
 the " paquetage," the paltry and exact folding up 
 of equipment according to a prescribed plan, meant 
 in reality prompt readiness at shortest notice. The 
 legionnaire has no wardrobe and is obliged to put 
 a host of things into a ridiculously small space with 
 methodical neatness. But the result of all this is 
 that he can find every piece in the dark and stands 
 with his kit packed according to marching regula- 
 tions ten minutes after the alarm. 
 
 The Legion understands its soldiering business. 
 One must admit that. It shoots brilliantly. The 
 general regulations for the computation of the 
 shooting range are absolutely ignored by the Legion. 
 But every man tests his gun over every range until 
 he knows exactly, when given a distance, how his 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 97 
 
 own gun shoots over it : at four hundred yards, a 
 hand's -breadth up, and a hand's-breadth to the left 
 . . . and so on. The shooting-range at Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes is never unoccupied, cartridges are not stinted, 
 and a company would feel very unhappy if at least 
 half of its men were not first-class shots. Money 
 prizes are even given. I once got a prize of ten 
 francs. . . . 
 
 On the other hand, it is on the rifle-ground 
 that one can see how the legionnaire is treated 
 as a man. He is supposed to be a badly treated 
 man, a desperate man, one not to be trusted. As 
 a soldier the legionnaire must shoot, shoot much. 
 As a desperate man he ought not to have arms in 
 his possession. But the Legion has found a com- 
 promise. A corporal stands behind every legion- 
 naire who shoots on the range, watching the 
 shooter's every movement. From the same 
 reason even the sentinels do not get any cartridges. 
 The non-commissioned officer in command of the 
 guard receives a small box with ammunition, 
 locked and sealed and only to be opened in case of 
 necessity. Is a sentinel attacked, then he must 
 defend himself with his bayonet until he can alarm 
 the guard and bring the officer on duty to the 
 rescue with cartridges. Such things are significant. 
 But they do not prevent the legionnaire from 
 being a splendid soldier. 
 
 Individual training Boer tactics practical in- 
 struction . . . that is the Legion. And it marches. 
 Now and then its marching powers are increased 
 artificially. The " compagnies montees/' one with 
 
98 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 each regiment, companies mounted on mules, have 
 even done seventy kilometres a day. Every two 
 men have a mule. The one rides and takes the 
 baggage of his comrade marching alongside with 
 him on the mule. Then they change about. The 
 mounted companies lie far in the south and follow 
 up the hostile Arabs with colossal forced marches. 
 
 But on the whole " la legion " depends on 
 its legs. These brilliant professional soldiers 
 march. 
 
 I will give you, naturally translated, my com- 
 pany's weekly programme as it was hung up on the 
 blackboard every Saturday : 
 
 Monday . 6-7 Boxing. 
 
 7.30-10 Company drill. 
 12 Military march. 
 
 Tuesday . 6-7 Gymnastics. 
 
 7.30-10 Skirmishing. 
 
 11-12 Instruction in hygienic 
 rules in the field. 
 
 1 Work under the quartermas- 
 ter's direction. 
 
 Wednesday. 5.30-6.30 Boxing. 
 
 7 Company musters for bathing. 
 
 8-11 Mending uniforms, prepara- 
 tion for inspection by the 
 colonel. 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 99 
 
 Thursday . 5. 30 March to the shooting-range. 
 12-1 Instruction in first-aid to 
 
 wounded. 
 
 1.15 Work under the quarter- 
 master's orders. 
 
 Friday . 5 Military march. 
 
 1-2 Instruction in taking cover 
 in flat ground. 
 
 2.30 Work under the quarter- 
 master's orders. 
 
 Saturday . 5.30 Run over six kilometres. 
 8-11 Company drill. 
 12 Cleaning of barracks and 
 
 quarters. 
 4 Inspection of the barracks by 
 
 the colonel. The men stand 
 
 beside their beds in duck 
 
 suit. 
 
 N.B. At the 11 o'clock muster each morning a 
 part of the uniform, to be named each day by the 
 adjutant, has to be presented for inspection. 
 
 Inseparable from the Legion's military value is the 
 Legion's work. 
 
 Not so very long ago Sidi-bel- Abbes was a sand- 
 heap, on which only a "marabout" stood, the 
 tomb of a pious saint, to which the Arab hordes 
 of the Beni Amer made pilgrimages. At that 
 
100 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 time strange men came, gathered round the brand 
 new flag of the Legion and convinced the sons of 
 Amer in bloody battles that it would be good for 
 their health to move farther south. These strange 
 men built roads and burned bricks. They built 
 solid fortification walls, drained that horrid little 
 rivulet Mekerra, which flowed so sluggishly through 
 the sand, and which smelt so badly ; they- laid out 
 gardens and planted olive-trees. The barracks, 
 the public buildings, most of the dwelling-houses 
 arose under the hands of these industrious merce- 
 naries. 
 
 The legionnaire was always and is always still a 
 workman. The heaviest work of the Foreign 
 Legion is done on the smallest military stations in 
 Algeria, down in the south, on the borders of the 
 Sahara, where every day's bodily work means loss 
 of health to a European. There the working 
 column turns out day by day with pick and spade 
 to build roads, whilst perhaps in an Arab viUage 
 a few hours distant the civil authorities are 
 distributing "relief" in the form of natural pro- 
 ducts to loafing Arabs. Eighty per cent, of 
 Algeria's brilliant roads have been built by the 
 Legion. 
 
 The trowel is thrust into the legionnaire's hand. 
 There, now you are a mason. He builds barracks 
 for the troops and offices for the civil administra- 
 tion. He breaks the stones with which the roads 
 are repaired. He performs the pioneer work of 
 Northern Africa at a wage which a coolie would 
 scoff at. 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS ioi 
 
 His strength is made full use of. A grotesque 
 example of this is the custom prevailing in the 
 2nd Regiment, stationed in Saida, to allow l^gion- 
 naires to work for private people in the town. 
 They, of course, get less wage for this than a 
 common workman would ask for, but that in itself 
 would not be so bad, because even the few francs a 
 day mean wealth to a legionnaire. The peculiarity, 
 however, the typical side of the whole affair, is 
 that these workers have to hand over a part of 
 their day's earnings to the funds of their company. 
 The company enriches itself through their work. 
 
 In the garrison life of Sidi-bel- Abbes the work of 
 the Legion took grotesque forms. In my life I have 
 spent several weeks on end in the saddle; while 
 still very young I struggled for existence in the 
 United States ; I have suffered from hunger and 
 cold, and for months I have had shivering fits of 
 malaria but I never experienced to such a degree 
 the feeling that my physical strength was being 
 pumped out of me to the last drop as during the 
 time I spent in Sidi-bel- Abbes. I was always tired 
 and every free moment found me stretched out at 
 full length on my camp bed. During work I had 
 the ambition (which to-day appears to me ridiculous) 
 to be second to none in strength and endurance. 
 Scarcely, however, was the work ended, when the 
 bodily and mental depression set in. 
 
 My captain was quite right when one day at 
 inspection he stood still in front of me and said 
 disapprovingly to the sergeant: "II a maigri 
 beaucoup ! " (He has got very thin !) 
 
IN TltE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 "Mais il fait son service," replied the sergeant. 
 (He does his work.) 
 
 That was of course the principal thing. 
 
 The getting thin and feeling tired had their own 
 good reasons. Like all legionnaires I was a working 
 animal. Early in the morning the hard military 
 service began. The afternoon brought the " corve'e " 
 work, and the evening the ridiculous small jobs of 
 the barrack routine. The word "corvee," which 
 literally means drudgery and in the military sense 
 " work," I will not forget as long as I live, and will 
 never read it again without shuddering. " Corve'e " 
 was a component part of almost every day in the 
 Legion. The work was often so hard that every 
 bone and every muscle in my body ached, often it 
 was simply ridiculous and depressing. 
 
 The greater part of the company mustered 
 generally at 1 P.M. in the barrack-yard, and the 
 sergeant " du jour " chose working parties, each of 
 which was in charge of a corporal. That was 
 something quite different to the military service. 
 Indifferent as I must have been at that time, I 
 nevertheless always noticed the sulky and disgusted 
 faces the men made when they went to this work. 
 In small groups we marched out of the barracks, 
 armed with broom, pick and shovel. 
 
 The Legion was there to work, and from the 
 legionnaire one could ask things impossible in other 
 French troops. If one saw a soldier working in 
 Sidi-bel- Abbes, then he was sure to be a legionnaire. 
 Arab Spahis or French soldiers of the line, who 
 were also stationed in Sidi-bel- Abbes, had never 
 
VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS 103 
 
 such work to do as we did, and which should have 
 been done by scavengers and navvies. That was 
 the privilege of the Foreign Legion. 
 
 From the Arab Spahis, that is to say from the 
 natives, such work was not demanded. On the 
 other hand, the Legion had often to supply men to 
 put the forage of the " Spahis " under cover. That 
 may sound paltry, but it is just these small things 
 that characterise the way the legionnaire is taken 
 advantage of. He is just good enough for any 
 kind of work. 
 
 We swept the public park of the town for the 
 citizens of Sidi-bel-Abbes, whilst the gardeners 
 stood idly by, watching us and ordering us about ; we 
 rooted out the undergrowth, and cleansed the brook 
 which ran through the botanical gardens from mud 
 and refuse. We emptied the drains in the officers' 
 houses ; we did scavengers' work in the filthy slums 
 of the town. 
 
 Once I was a member of a detachment that had 
 to clean the sewers in the Arab prison. The work 
 was loathsome beyond measure. We had taken 
 with us a large barrow with casks, and had to haul 
 from underneath the floors of the cells and prison 
 rooms the large tin pans, and carry them to 
 the barrow. We performed this disgusting work, 
 whilst in the prison yard the loafing Arab 
 rabble prowled around and made jokes at our 
 expense. 
 
 Sunday only was free from work, free from all 
 kinds of service. , We were not even mustered. And 
 the legionnaire lies the whole blessed Sunday in 
 
104 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 bed. Towards evening he goes to the Jardin 
 Public to listen to the concert given by the 
 regimental band. He goes there because it is 
 the Legion's custom but he would much rather 
 sleep on. . . . 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 "THE LEGION GETS NO PAY " 
 
 The money troubles of the Legion : Five centimes 
 wages : The cheapest soldiers of the world : Letters 
 from the Legion : The science of <f decorating " : The 
 industries of the legionnaires : What the bugler did 
 for a living : The man with the biscuits : A thief in the 
 night : Summary lynch law : Herr von Rader and La 
 Cantiniere : " The Legion works the Legion gets no 
 pay!" 
 
 THE poor fellows who enlisted because they had 
 no money to buy a crust of bread made the biggest 
 mistake of their lives when they thought to finish 
 with their troubles by entering the Legion. 
 
 Without exception every man in the Legion had 
 his money troubles. 
 
 Money was a thing of immense value in the 
 Foreign Legion. The possession of a few francs 
 made an enormous difference and created in the 
 midst of the Legion's red-trousered equality the 
 finest social grades and distinctions. Not only the 
 value but also the power of money was enhanced 
 in the Legion. Copper pieces meant a great deal 
 here. Copper pieces purchased a few " litres " 
 of wine, or a nocturnal carouse, or a substitute to 
 help in doing hard work. The legionnaire with a 
 
 105 
 
106 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 little money was on quite a different footing to the 
 man who had none. 
 
 Rassedin, the wealthy Rassedin, was a prince in 
 a surrounding of poor devils. A wide gap parted 
 him from the other men. They flattered him to 
 get into his good graces and accepted gladly his 
 insolence, if there were but a few sous or a few 
 good cigarettes to be had. Of our quarters he was 
 the king. He reigned supreme. He was obeyed in 
 all matters. It was too funny to see how his comrades 
 hurried themselves when this man, the incarnation 
 of the God of Mammon in the Legion, happened to 
 express a wish, and how they then went off with 
 beaming faces to the canteen to change the couple 
 of sous they had earned into wine. The self-confi- 
 dence with which the Belgian bore the dignity of his 
 wealth (and what enormous wealth are a few 
 thousand francs to a legionnaire !) was, considered 
 by itself, only funny. But many a time I suspected 
 that Rassedin, who knew so well w r hat a frightful 
 death was waiting for him, despised the petty 
 greed of them all from the bottom of his heart. 
 
 Money rules even in the Foreign Legion ! 
 
 The pay is five centimes daily, which is about 
 one cent or one halfpenny. Exactly the fiftieth 
 part of the daily pay of an American regular. The 
 twenty-fourth part of a British soldier's daily pay. 
 The comparison is grotesque. 
 
 When one considers, however, that the man who 
 enlists in the Foreign Legion sells his skin and is 
 a " paid " mercenary, the comparison becomes 
 astounding. The average legionnaire finds out in 
 
"THE LEGION GETS NO PAY' 107 
 
 a remarkably short time that he has been a fool 
 to enlist, that he is the victim of a system very 
 near akin to slavery, that he is a working man 
 without wages, a labourer without pay. An old 
 French proverb says : Business is getting the 
 other man's money I 
 
 And very substantial values is La France getting 
 out of the legionnaire. With this poorly paid 
 Legion, the French Republic protects the boundaries 
 of her territory in Algeria and conquers the 
 southern deserts step by step in the everlasting 
 wars in French Tonquin the Legion's troops are 
 always ready for service. Fighting is not the only 
 work of the Foreign Legion, however. Only one- 
 half of the legionnaire is a real soldier. The other 
 half of him is workman, carpenter, builder, road- 
 maker. He works hard and he is so cheap a 
 workman that no Chinese coolie can compete with 
 him. He receives board and clothes and a cent a 
 day the cheap soldier of the Legion, this funny 
 soldier of "fortune." He can be made use of in 
 the most terrible climates, for the most risky 
 operations, simply because nobody troubles his 
 head about him and because his officers have no 
 account to render for his life or death. 
 
 The sum of money which his work with pick and 
 shovel, with mason's trowel and carpenter's axe has 
 saved the French Government in all these years 
 must be enormous. And if a bullet, or sunstroke, 
 or typhoid fever, or dysentery carries away a l^gion- 
 naire, the only expense he is the cause of is the 
 making of a hole in the sand. So cheap ! Truly, 
 
108 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 France's Foreign Legion is a well-paying enterprise ! 
 Glorious soldiers and successful workmen are re- 
 markably cheap at five centimes a day. . . . 
 
 Every five days the legionnaire gets his wages 
 paid. He holds five copper sous in his hand and 
 must decide whether to buy cigarette tobacco, or 
 cleaning materials, or a bottle of wine. It is only 
 enough for one of these three. The purchase of 
 a box of matches, which are monopolised in Algeria 
 and cost five centimes, is a very grave financial 
 problem. Therefore matches are scarce. Nowhere 
 in the world is one so often asked for a match as in 
 the streets of Sidi-bel- Abbes and in the Legion's 
 barracks. 
 
 No wonder that the possession of a few silver 
 pieces is something truly great for a legionnaire ; 
 no wonder that men like Rassedin rule as kings. 
 Nowhere can the lesson of the value of money be 
 so thoroughly learned as in the Foreign Legion. 
 
 The money troubles of the Legion are, of course, 
 ridiculously petty troubles. 
 
 The luckiest man (considered from the Legion's 
 point of view) is he who has kept up some sort 
 of communication with home. The most appalling 
 letters are then written to parents and relations and 
 friends. Usually the poor devil of a letter-writer 
 exaggerates a little, and his descriptions of famine 
 and hardships are most moving. They must be 
 very hard-hearted people indeed who do not 
 acknowledge the receipt of such a letter with a 
 small postal order. Then there is joy in the land 
 of Sidi-bel- Abbes. For a day, or a few days, or 
 
"THE LEGION GETS NO PAY' 109 
 
 even a week, the prodigal son with the postal order 
 lives like a king. He has his boots cleaned for 
 him, and would not dream of making his own bed 
 as long as his money lasts. A comrade does that 
 for him, and in reward is graciously permitted to 
 share a drink. C'est la Legion! To play the 
 "grand seigneur," if it is but for a day, is the 
 average legionnaire's dream of happiness. He thinks 
 it the finest thing in all the world to play at having 
 a servant, if it's but for a day. . . . And this is 
 the surest sign of the legionnaire's abject poverty. 
 These lucky ones who receive a postal order occa- 
 sionally represent the creme de la crme, the elite 
 of society in the Foreign Legion. The others 
 have to help themselves. They must " decorate 
 themselves ! " 
 
 This " decorating " is a fine art in the Foreign 
 Legion. It is a mixture of work, cunning, brains, 
 and theft. 
 
 " Decorate yourself ! " 
 
 That is the sum total of an old legionnaire's 
 wisdom, and these two words are the only advice 
 that he gives, or indeed can give, to the new- 
 comer. Make your .life in the Legion as easy as 
 possible is the meaning of this advice ; take care 
 that your tobacco-pouch stays full, that your 
 uniform is in order and your kit complete, that you 
 have as often as possible the three sous necessary 
 for your litre of wine. 
 
 The way in which this " decorating " is carried out 
 is a purely personal affair. . . . 
 
 My friend the bugler used to make gaudy " cein- 
 
110 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 tures " from coloured pieces of cloth and old leather- 
 work, belts with crests and buttons of the Legion. 
 He found good customers for his belts amongst the 
 Arabs and occasionally amongst Spanish workmen 
 in the little wine-shops of Sidi-bel- Abbes. In his 
 special methods of decorating the old legionnaire 
 developed an extraordinary business instinct. His 
 transactions were not at all simple. An Arab 
 never parts with hard cash after the time- 
 honoured manner of his kind. So the bugler 
 had to "trade." He would exchange his gaudy 
 rags for a pair of pretty golden-bossed Arabian 
 shoes, or a grotesquely carved Arabian stick, or a 
 morocco purse of fine leather-work. Then Smith 
 would constitute one of the legionnaires on orderly 
 duty in the officers' mess his agent. Paying cus- 
 tomers could easily be found amongst the young 
 officers. The final result was always the same: 
 many litres of the sweet heavy wine of Algeria 
 into which all the copper coins of the Legion invari- 
 ably change. 
 
 A legionnaire of the fourth company was gene- 
 rally known as " Fhomme des biscuits 1 " His 
 speciality was to gather in all the companies the 
 biscuits given out twice weekly to complete the 
 bread ration. They were like ship's biscuit and 
 extremely hard. Most of the men would not 
 touch them. So the biscuit man had a capital 
 gathering ground, and in some cunning way, which 
 he carefully kept secret, he took sack upon sack of 
 these biscuits out of the barracks. In the market- 
 place of Sidi-bel- Abbes he found plenty of cus- 
 
"THE LEGION GETS NO PAY' 111 
 
 tomers. Others, less inventive, confined themselves 
 to cleaning and washing for comrades better off 
 than they. In some way every one tried to 
 "decorate himself." . . . The main object in a 
 legionnaire's life is the getting together of a few 
 coppers. 
 
 Decorating meant also occasional theft. ... In 
 matters of stealing the Legion draws the line very 
 sharply. The theft of equipment, to replace lost 
 or stolen parts, was considered absolutely respect- 
 able and gentleman-like. There was no other 
 remedy, as the man who loses something is punished 
 severely. 
 
 Thieving " decorating " is a very simple thing 
 and quickly learned. 
 
 " I've lost a pair of trousers ! " cries the recruit 
 in despair. 
 
 " That's nothing," says the old legionnaire. 
 
 " Curse it, what shall I do then ? " wails the new- 
 comer. 
 
 " Decorate yourself, you fool," says the old 
 hand. 
 
 Whereupon the recruit (after receiving detailed 
 instructions from the wise old soldier) walks 
 into the back yard, where the washing is hanging 
 out to dry, and waits in a dark corner with great 
 patience for an auspicious moment. A lightning 
 snatch and a pair of somebody's trousers hanging 
 innocently on the line are his. He has decorated 
 himself. It's immoral, of course. It's theft right 
 enough. It's deplorable . . . but it is most con- 
 venient. The Legion does not worry about small 
 
112 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 matters of right or wrong. The Legion says : 
 Each for himself; why didn't you keep an eye on 
 your washing, you fool ! 
 
 Now such a single theft of a single pair of trou- 
 sers naturally is but the first link in a long chain of 
 trouser-stealing. The man who has been robbed 
 has no other remedy than doing likewise. And 
 so on. ... In a very few days hundreds of pairs 
 of trousers change owners, until somewhere in the 
 long chain some one is struck who buys himself a new 
 pair. Somehow or other it all comes right ! 
 
 The Legion considers this sort of theft sports- 
 man-like and gentlemanly, a thing permitted, and 
 it is a " point d'honneur " to be smart enough not to 
 get caught by the rightful owner. 
 
 But woe to the legionnaire who should ever 
 extend his decorating operations to tobacco or 
 money or even bread. The whole company would 
 form a self-constituted detective corps and find the 
 culprit out very soon. The rest would be silence 
 and hospital ! 
 
 During one of the very first nights an ugly 
 scene took place which showed only too well how 
 a thief is treated in the Legion. In the middle of 
 the night furious shouting made me jump out 
 of bed. Sleepily I looked about me. Around 
 Rassedin's bed stood a group of cursing and gesti- 
 culating soldiers. I went up to them. Smith 
 and three others were holding in grips of iron a 
 a fourth man who could hardly speak for terror. 
 
"THE LEGION GETS NO PAY' 113 
 
 His face was white as chalk. Rassedin stood there 
 in his shirt, staring hard at the man caught. 
 
 " You're from the tenth company ? " 
 
 " Yes," stammered the man. 
 
 "What in hell are you doing in the eleventh 
 then?" 
 
 " Been drinking got into the wrong quarters 
 let me go " 
 
 In the meantime all the men in the room had 
 gathered and were standing around the group. 
 
 " Nom de Dieu what a dirty fellow ! " said 
 Rassedin. " Listen, you chaps. I had my money 
 in my trousers and my trousers were under my 
 pillow. Just now I felt something moving near 
 me, jumped up and caught hold. Do you know 
 what I caught? This chap's hand. What do 
 you think of that ? " 
 
 " Voleur ! " cried the bugler. " Thief ! " 
 
 The word acted like a signal. All at once fists 
 were clenched, a bayonet gleamed, a struggle arose, 
 and a dozen men rolled on the ground. The scene 
 lasted for perhaps a minute. Then all was still 
 the man from the tenth company lay there gasping 
 and covered with blood. His face was black, so 
 terribly was it bruised. A blow from the bayonet 
 had split his cheek and a stream of blood flowed 
 over his blue jacket. The guard came up and the 
 fellow was carried into hospital. 
 
 " He wanted to steal my money ! He wanted 
 to decorate himself! " said Rassedin grimly. " For 
 the present we've decorated him ! " 
 
 The man lay in hospital for weeks. That was 
 
 H 
 
114 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 the end of it. That night's lynch -law in our 
 quarters was not inquired into. The punishment 
 of the thief rests in the hands of his comrades. So 
 decrees the custom of the Legion. . . . 
 
 When it came to " decorating," Herr von Rader 
 was in his element. The Legion's little ways had 
 nothing mysterious for him. In a week the whole 
 Legion knew him and respected him as a man of 
 brains and resource. Every evening he went 
 across to the canteen. Money he had not. But 
 he juggled untiringly with empty wine-bottles, 
 performed the most difficult conjuring tricks with 
 absinthe glasses, and used to tell Madame la 
 Cantiniere (who understood a little German) the 
 funniest stories. Very soon he succeeded in mak- 
 ing a deep impression on that worthy lady, the 
 queen over so many desirable wine-casks. She 
 found the clever Herr von Rader amusing, and 
 she did something that she had never done before 
 in her life. She gave the man of many tricks a 
 gratis bottle of wine every evening, and into the 
 bargain the change out of an imaginary ten- sous 
 piece. Madame's Portuguese husband had no 
 idea of this little secret of his wife's kind heart. 
 Anyway, he need not have troubled himself: Herr 
 von Rader had not the slightest intention of en- 
 dangering Madame la Cantini&re's conjugal fidelity 
 he only loved her wine. . . . 
 
 Thus did Herr von Rader decorate himself with 
 
 
THE LEGION GETS NO PAY * 115 
 
 his glib tongue and his clever fingers. The 
 soldiering part of his work was easy enough for 
 him. Herr von Rader got on better under the 
 flag of the Legion than all the other recruits. Some- 
 times, however (when Madame la Cantiniere was 
 in a bad temper or her Portuguese husband kept 
 too sharp an eye on her), even Herr von Rader 
 would fall into a thoughtful mood. Then he 
 would rub away angrily at his leather equipment 
 and propound practical philosophy. Something 
 like this : 
 
 "Nom de Dieu!" (Herr von Rader was 
 already quite at home with the curses of the 
 French language.) " Nom de bon Dieu 1 This 
 Legion is no good. Nix good. Now, for an 
 intelligent man like me there is a bottle of 
 wine and a cigarette easily to be had anywhere 
 in the world. You'll admit that! Is it easy 
 here ? It is not ! I've got to waste a lot of 
 thinking and fine art just to keep in cigarettes. . . . 
 This Legion's rotten. I've been had. They've 
 swindled me 1 I'll tell you what, mein Freund : 
 I'm going to skin out. This boy is going to run 
 away. ..." 
 
 He did " skin out," some time afterwards. For 
 it the cheerful Herr von Rader was to suffer the 
 whole immeasurably hard punishment system of 
 the Legion. 
 
 Even this cheerful fellow, who knew so well 
 how to help himself, and in consequence was far 
 better off than the other men in the Legion, was 
 
116 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 troubled by the simple problem of the Foreign 
 Legion ! A problem which so many of the 
 Legion's soldiers have tried to reason out with so 
 many head-shakings. A problem which once an 
 Arabian Spahi put very plainly in a few scornful 
 words : 
 
 " The Legion works the Legion gets no pay ! " 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CITY OF THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 The daily exodus to town : Ben Mansur's coffee : The 
 Ghetto : The citizens of Sidi-bel- Abbes and the legion- 
 naires : How the Legion squared accounts with the 
 civilians : A forbidden part of the town : Primitive 
 vice : A dance of a night : The gardens : The last 
 resting-place of the Legion's dead 
 
 EN ville! Off to Sidi-bel- Abbes ! Every after- 
 noon shortly before six o'clock there began a very 
 exodus from the Legion's barracks to the town. A 
 legionnaire would rather clean and polish for an 
 hour after lights out in the semi-darkness of the 
 night-lamp than miss his stroll to town. The daily 
 walk in Sidi-bel- Abbes was part of the Legion's 
 sacred tradition. At five o'clock the gigantic gates 
 of the barracks were closed and only a little side 
 door remained open. Here the sergeant of the 
 guard posted himself and carefully inspected every- 
 body who wanted to go out, so that the Legion's 
 reputation for chic should not suffer. The uniform 
 to be worn in town was prescribed every day by a 
 special regimental order ; each legionnaire had to 
 wear the same uniform, red trousers and bluejacket 
 or white trousers and blue overcoat, and everybody 
 
 117 
 
118 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 took an especial pride in looking as trim and smart 
 as possible. 
 
 Three thousand soldiers of the Legion used to 
 stroll about the streets of Sidi-bel- Abbes every 
 evening. For me this daily walk was a wondrous 
 change from the Legion's routine. Above the 
 gleam of the electric arc lamps shone the starry 
 glory of a southern sky. Little black boys in white 
 breeches, whose countless folds might have told 
 endless stories of stolen trifles they had concealed, 
 lounged at the street corners and cried the even- 
 ing paper, the Echo dOran ; Arabs in white 
 burnouses, carrying in their hands the dangerous 
 Arabian sticks, in which they find a never-failing 
 missile, stood motionless, silently watching with 
 looks of suspicion the " Rumis," the white foreigners 
 who will always remain foreigners to them and 
 whose customs they will never be able to under- 
 stand. All Sidi-bel-Abbes was promenading ; 
 citizens of the town, officers and civilians of the 
 " Bureau Arabe " with their womenfolk. In 
 between came the Legion's heavy soldier-steps and 
 the sound of gently rattling bayonets. 
 
 Four streets, which run exactly north, south, 
 east, and west, to Oran, Daya, Maskara, and 
 Tlemcen, divide the town at right angles. They 
 are the main streets in which the European shops 
 and fashionable cafes lie. For private financial 
 reasons the legionnaire does not buy in these shops 
 arid in the fashionable cafes he is badly treated. 
 The legionnaire has no business in the main streets 
 from the honest citizen's point of view. 
 
THE CITY OF THE LEGION 119 
 
 Between the blocks of the main streets, however, 
 a labyrinth of small courts and alleys is hidden. 
 There the Spanish Jews and Arabs live, there 
 trading and bargaining goes on incessantly. 
 
 In this maze of dark alleys the men of the Legion 
 were at home, in the treacherous wineshops which 
 depended on the custom of the soldiers. " Bar de 
 la Legion," or " Bar du Legionnaire," or " Bar de 
 Madagascar " these hovels called themselves. Good 
 wine is ridiculously cheap in Algeria. But out of 
 the legionnaires extra money must needs be made. 
 They were given a brew in the wineshops made 
 from grapes which had been pressed already two or 
 three times and to which a little alcohol lent 
 flavour and "aroma." Beside the wineshops were 
 Mohammedan restaurants in which one could eat 
 " kuskus " and " galettes," tough pancakes with 
 honey ; restaurants in which knives and forks were 
 looked upon as accursed instruments, which doubt- 
 less the devil of the Rumis must have invented for 
 devilish purposes unintelligible to a true believer. 
 Poverty and filth reigned in these places, but they 
 were good enough for the poor despised legion- 
 naire. One cafe in this quarter had an individuality 
 of its own, depending exclusively on the custom of 
 the Legion. In a corner by the theatre a pretty little 
 Spanish girl had put up a wooden hut and filled it 
 with rickety old chairs, to be treated and used with 
 great care, given her in charity probably somewhere 
 or other merely to get rid of them. There she sold 
 coffee to the soldiers of the Legion. This little woman 
 had a good eye for business. Her coffee was, 'tis 
 
120 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 true, merely coloured hot water and not especially 
 good water at that, but the soldier of the Legion 
 willingly drank it, for Manuelita's coffee was very 
 cheap indeed, and a pretty smile and a coquette 
 glance went with each cup. When business was 
 slack the hostess would even chat a little. These 
 tactics secured for the sly little Spaniard the faith- 
 ful custom of the legionnaires. La Legion made 
 love to Manuelita unceasingly. . . . The old 
 legionnaires stole flowers for her, and if somewhere 
 in Tonquin or on the Morocco border plundering had 
 been going on, Manuelita would some months later 
 be sure to receive the finest presents, stolen for her 
 by her old friends of the Legion and carried about 
 all the time in knapsacks. The Legion was grate- 
 ful to Manuelita. She was the great exception. 
 Besides her and Madame la Cantiniere there was no 
 woman in the town of the Foreign Legion who 
 would even in her wildest dreams have deigned a 
 legionnaire worthy of a glance. 
 
 Smith would never have patronised this Cafe de 
 la Legion. He knew something much better. To 
 him I owed my acquaintance with Ben Mansur's 
 coffee. His was a Moorish coffee-house. Finely 
 coloured mosaics formed Arabian proverbs on the 
 floor and against the walls there were long marble 
 benches. Arabs crouched on these benches and 
 smoked comfortably gurgling narghiles the in- 
 carnation of quietude and silence. For hours they 
 sat over a single cup of coffee, whose purchase gave 
 them also, according to Arabian custom, the right 
 of spending the night on the marble benches. In 
 
THE CITY OF THE LEGION 121 
 
 stolid silence they played " esch schronsch " 
 chess. 
 
 One seldom saw a soldier of the Legion here, for 
 Ben Mansur only spoke Arabic. Smith, however, was 
 his bosom friend, and these two always greeted one 
 another solemnly with deep bows, with their arms 
 folded on the breast in Arab fashion. 
 
 Ben Mansur's coffee was a dream of fairyland. 
 All day and all night charcoal glowed in the 
 ancient Moorish stove in the corner, and in a 
 wonderful octagonal copper kettle, which must 
 have done service for generations of Arabs, there 
 simmered boiling water. A silver can contained a 
 1 thick coffee brew, a kind of extract. From this 
 Ben Mansur filled the little clay cups half full and 
 poured in boiling water. Then he conjured dream- 
 land into the tiny little cups, adding a drop here 
 and a drop there from mysterious bottles, a drop of 
 essence of oranges, a drop of hashish oil and a drop 
 of opium. Ben Mansur's coffee, with its wonderful 
 aroma and the restful oblivion which that little cup 
 gave, was a wonder never to be forgotten. Smith 
 and I used to sit on the marble benches by the hour, 
 legs crossed in honour of the customs of our host's 
 race. Before us stood the water-pipe of the Orient, 
 a "narghile," filled with wonderful tobacco very 
 different from the products of the Algerian tobacco 
 monopoly. Ben Mansur would never take more 
 than two sous, which is two cents, for both of us, 
 no matter how many pipes we smoked or how 
 many cups of coffee we drank. This was his idea 
 of hospitality. 
 
 
122 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Then again I used to wander with Smith through 
 the dirty streets of the Jewish quarter, where the 
 rubbish-heaps lay in the open streets and the 
 atmosphere was tainted with every variety of smell. 
 At the corners thin Spanish Jews, with the sharp 
 features common to their race, haggled over a 
 bargain ; Algerian Jews walked stately through the 
 alleys, in long flowing robes of blue and brown silk, 
 men of importance who held the wealth of the 
 country in their hands as the go-betweens of the 
 world's trade and the riches of Algeria. Wealth 
 and power dwelt in this miserable quarter of Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes under the shell of poverty with which Israel 
 is so fond of surrounding itself. 
 
 In the Ghetto of Sidi-bel- Abbes no trifle is so 
 small that it is not worth haggling about, and no 
 proposition paltry enough to come amiss to the 
 man of the Ghetto, whose love of money is so great 
 that he does not despise even the Legion's small 
 copper pieces. The Ghetto and the Foreign Legion 
 have quite lively business connections, consisting 
 principally in the change of small currency notes. 
 Many banknotes which originally formed the kernel 
 of a legionnaire's letter from home have 
 wandered into the mysterious channels of Jewish 
 trade. The Ghetto of Sidi-bel- Abbes has earned a 
 small fortune in these small transactions. A 
 legionnaire is seldom much of a man of business 
 and he certainly is always in a big hurry to get 
 his dollar or his five marks or his five pesetas 
 changed into francs and centimes so he submits 
 with more or less grace to fantastic rates of 
 
THE CITY OF THE LEGION 123 
 
 exchange, getting little more than three francs for 
 a dollar and about four francs for a " fiinf Mark 
 Schein." All other business of the Ghetto with the 
 soldiers of the Legion is equally profitable for the 
 other man, be it understood, not, of course, for the 
 legionnaire. Very often men of the Legion steal, 
 under cover of darkness, silently through the little 
 streets of the Jewish quarter carrying big bundles 
 of brown woollen blankets and blue sashes, stamped 
 in the middle and at the corners with the Legion's 
 stamp in white paint, which marks them clearly as 
 regimental property. But what's in a stamp ! It 
 can be got rid of easily enough with good will and 
 a little turpentine. . . . 
 
 Anything that a legionnaire may want to sell the 
 second-hand merchants of Sidi-bel- Abbes buy; at 
 prices below contempt, it is true, but all the same 
 they buy it. The small silver coins of the Ghetto 
 have been the ruin of more than one soldier of the 
 Legion who in a fit of rage sold his uniform to the 
 obliging trader and paid the penalty with a long 
 term of imprisonment. 
 
 Thus the interests of the Ghetto and the interests 
 of the Legion are identical in a small way, and as 
 a result the Ghetto man and the soldier are quite 
 friendly with each other. 
 
 The honest citizen of Sidi-bel- Abbes, however, a 
 half-caste of Spanish or Levantine or French extrac- 
 tion, is anything but fond of the red-trousered 
 foreigner. He depises the Legion and its men from 
 the bottom of his heart and has quite forgotten that 
 the very same Legion built his town for him in the 
 
124 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 beginning ; that there would be no Sidi-bel- Abbes 
 if there had been no Legion. . . . His woman-kind 
 draw their skirts close about them when they meet 
 a legionnaire in the streets, as if he were plague- 
 stricken. He himself why, he has managed to 
 bring it about that the officers mess is now merely 
 used as an evening club, while the officers have to 
 dine in hotels, in order that the honest citizen may 
 make a little money out of them. The sub- 
 lieutenants dine in one hotel, the first lieutenants 
 in another, the unmarried captains and higher 
 officers patronise a third. Every hotel had to have 
 a share in the spoils, of course ! The honest citizen 
 is very indignant when the regimental band does 
 not give a concert three times weekly for him ; he 
 has his public parks swept by the Legion and takes 
 good care that all the provisions for the three 
 thousand soldiers are bought in the town itself 
 and nowhere else. For the trifling purchases 
 which even a poor devil of a legionnaire sometimes 
 makes he keeps a specially rubbishy class of article 
 and charges double prices for it. 
 
 The regiment of foreigners is a very good thing 
 for the honest citizen of Sidi-bel- Abbes, but never- 
 theless he despises the Legion and the legionnaire- 
 this citizen of the Foreign Legion's town. 
 
 He takes good care, however, not to express 
 his feelings of dislike too openly to Monsieur le 
 Legionnaire, for he has more than once learnt that 
 the men in red trousers are not to be trifled with. 
 That they are much better left alone, in fact. The 
 much-tried patience of the Legion has its strongly 
 
THE CITY OF THE LEGION 125 
 
 defined bounds and sometimes it gives way. When 
 the Legion is not occupied in Tonquin or Mada- 
 gascar or some such lovely neighbourhood, the 
 regimental band gives a concert several times a 
 week in the Place Sadi Carnot. The good man of 
 Sidi-bel- Abbes always found this concert very fine, 
 but what he did not like about it was that besides 
 himself thousands of legionnaires promenaded in 
 the Carnot square, enjoying the band's music as 
 much as the civilians. 
 
 One day the honest citizen drew a cordon of police 
 around the Place Sadi Carnot, with orders to let 
 no soldiers pass, and thought he would now have 
 the music all for himself. . . . 
 
 The legionnaires were struck dumb with astonish- 
 ment at this unheard-of impudence and the Arabian 
 policemen felt very uncomfortable. News of the 
 " outrage " was sent to barracks and in a very few 
 minutes the men of the Legion were assembled in 
 full force, discussing in fifteen different languages 
 the evident impossibility of living in peace with the 
 honest citizen of Sidi-bel- Abbes. All at once an 
 old soldier gave the word of command : 
 
 " En avant par colonne du regiment marche ! " 
 
 The Arabian policemen tumbled to right and to 
 left, the citizens of Sidi-bel- Abbes vanished as if by 
 a conjuring trick into the side streets, and in five 
 minutes there was not a single soul in civilian 
 clothes to be seen on the Place Sadi Carnot. The 
 men in red trousers Jield the field in triumph. 
 
 Since they were in fine humour and out for a 
 real good time they promptly smashed up all the 
 
126 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 chairs on which the ladies and gentlemen of Sidi- 
 bel- Abbes had been sitting, made a pile of them 
 and lit up a grand bonfire while the regimental 
 band played its gayest marches. 
 
 In the meantime a deputation of citizens had! 
 rushed to the colonel of the regiment and made| 
 a great noise about these horrible legionnaires. 
 The colonel merely laughed. 
 
 " My good sirs," said he, " it is now eleven 
 o'clock. My men have leave till midnight. In 
 another hour all will be over." 
 
 " But they have burnt the chairs," wailed the 
 deputation. 
 
 " I'm very glad they have not burned anything 
 else," laughed the colonel. " You leave my men 
 in peace and they'll let you alone." 
 
 Since that time the honest citizen of Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes has been rather more careful in his treat- 
 ment of the Legion. It is true that an order oi 
 the town council says that a legionnaire can only 
 get a ticket for the gallery in the town's theatre 
 but if a legionnaire with superfluous money wants 
 a seat in the stalls, he can nevertheless get it 
 The honest citizen has learnt to respect the Legion's 
 feelings. 
 
 But, under the surface, the citizen's contempt o 
 the Legion naturally remained. The soldier oi 
 the foreign regiment puts out the fires which break 
 out in Sidi-bel- Abbes, he saves the citizens anc 
 their goods when the stream of the Mekerra 
 becomes a roaring torrent in the rainy season, anc 
 
THE CITY OF THE LEGION 127 
 
 he protects the helpless townspeople when the 
 descendants of the Beni Amer try to institute the 
 Jewish persecutions they are so fond of. ... He 
 does all that. But the poor devil of a mercenary 
 has no money, and this is the Mortal Sin. 
 * * * * 
 
 One quarter of the town was taboo to us l^gion- 
 naires, strictly forbidden under a penalty of a 
 'month's imprisonment: the "village negre," the 
 negro town, the home of every sort of disease and 
 crime. The beasts in human forms which house 
 there had more than once killed a legionnaire to 
 rob him of his sash or some such trifle. 
 
 Forbidden things always have a mysterious power 
 of attraction, and I was burning with curiosity. 
 Slowly, keeping a sharp look-out for patrols, I 
 crossed the big drill-ground one night and turned, 
 close behind the mosque, into the maze of huts. 
 It was a pitch-dark night, and I kept falling over 
 the dirt-heaps and tripping in the holes in the hard 
 trodden ground. 
 
 At last I saw lights. The main street of the 
 village ngre lay before me, a narrow little alley. 
 I could have touched the walls on either side with 
 outstretched arms. The miserable low houses were 
 half in ruins, and irregular holes took the place of 
 doors and windows. The alley, but a few paces 
 long, was brightly illuminated by the light of half 
 a dozen torches stuck in holes in the walls. 
 
 In this narrow space the vice of Sidi-bel- Abbes 
 was hidden. Songs and cries and shrieks filled 
 
128 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 the air. Before the huts women were sitting, poor 
 prostitutes, who sold themselves for a few coppers 
 and a drink of absinthe. Here was vice in its 
 most primitive form. The night was cold. Braziers 
 with glowing coals stood before every hut, and 
 women crouched over them that they might better 
 warm their bodies at the warmth of the fire. 
 Modesty seemed to be a thing unknown. A negress 
 with a figure full of strength lay there stretched at 
 full length almost naked, with the warmth-giving 
 firepan beside her. She was too worn out or too 
 lazy to speak, she merely invited the passers-by 
 with a gesture to come into her hut. Near her a 
 Frenchwoman, in whose face her awful life had cut 
 deep furrows, sat in a torn silk dress on the bare 
 ground. Beside them Arabian girls crouched, 
 children almost, the copper bangles on their arms 
 and legs showing that they were from the far South. 
 Italian women, with the characteristic gold earrings 
 of their race, and Spaniards, with oily shining hair, 
 quarrelled in high-pitched voices. The blazing 
 light of the torches gave their faces an uncanny 
 look. In the midst of these miserable women 
 moved the scum of the population of Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes. There were negroes in ragged linen coats 
 who in daytime carried heavy burdens on their 
 backs and spent their evenings regularly in the 
 village negre. Spanish labourers chattered and 
 gesticulated with the Spanish girls. It was the 
 meeting-place of the poor and the wretched, a corso 
 of humanity at its worst. 
 
 My bayonet rattling gently against the steel 
 
THE CITY OF THE LEGION 129 
 
 sheath startled the men and women. When they saw 
 that they only had to deal with a single legionnaire 
 and not with one of the much-feared patrols, they 
 cried out to me from all sides in a curious patois 
 of low French mixed with Arabic. The little I 
 understood of it was quite enough. The language 
 of the legionnaire leaves nothing wanting in the 
 way of force and clearness the language of the 
 village n&gre was filth condensed. Two negresses 
 began to quarrel as to whether a common legion- 
 naire could be in possession of even one sou, a 
 weighty question which was answered in the 
 negative amid much laughter. The Frenchwoman, 
 who was anything but sober, poked me in the 
 ribs and begged me, hiccoughing, for a " petite 
 absinthe." Obscene gestures and drunken cries 
 everywhere. And in the corner there leaned in 
 dignified repose an Arab policeman. 
 
 It smelled of moschus and heavy sweet Arabian 
 cigarettes. In Arabic the alley was called the 
 Street of the Seven Delights. Smith had told me 
 that. One could but shudder at the contemplation 
 of the seven delights. . . . 
 
 Then the comedy became clear to me. The 
 honest citizen of Sidi-bel-Abbes despised the 
 soldier of the Legion but he tolerated the horrors 
 of the village negre. 
 
 Short commands sounded from afar and the 
 steady steps of a patrol drew near. If I was dis- 
 covered, it meant prison for me, so I dived into the 
 protecting darkness of a small by-street. Stumbling 
 and falling continually I felt my way forward in the 
 
130 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 pitchy darkness, till I heard low voices. The alley 
 took a sudden turn. 
 
 I found myself in the court of a Moorish house. 
 Arabs in white robes crouched and squatted on the 
 ground smoking their narghiles. Most of them 
 hardly looked up as I came in, and an old man 
 with a long white beard nodded and smiled to me. 
 
 On the glowing fire stood a copper kettle with 
 bubbling hot water, and an old negro was making 
 tea for the Arabs. On the wall on one side of the 
 court a cloth was hung up, of fine brocade, with 
 golden embroidery, on a ground of red and yellow, 
 in fantastical arabesques. Many cushions were 
 spread on the white sand. The Arabs themselves 
 sat on finely woven yellow mats. At respectful 
 distance from the men girls stood and lounged 
 about, wondrous youthful forms with veil-like robes 
 and countless copper ornaments on arms and legs, 
 which tinkled at their slightest movement. All 
 were sipping tea out of tiny little cups. All at 
 once I heard English words, an old nursery 
 rhyme : 
 
 Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall, 
 Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall, 
 And all the king's horses and all the king's men 
 , Could not put Humpty-Dumpty together again. 
 
 Startled, I turned round and saw in the folds of 
 an Arabian burnous the face of a white woman 
 with fair hair and features who must once have 
 been beautiful. Smoking an Arabian cigarette, 
 she nodded dreamily with a happy smile and ever 
 anew she would sing the nursery rhyme. . . . 
 
THE CITY OF THE LEGION 131 
 
 Suddenly a girl sprang up, bracelets jingling, a 
 child almost, of the pure Arabian type. Fasci- 
 nated, the Arabs and the other women stared at 
 her ; so still it was that one could hear the sound 
 of one's own breathing. The girl let the thin veil 
 of a garment she was wearing fall down to her hips 
 and stood immobile as a statue for a minute or 
 two, her arms stretched out, the head proudly 
 thrown back, her eyes shining in triumph courting 
 admiration. She reminded me forcibly of a bronze 
 statuette I had possessed in days gone by. . . . 
 
 Very slowly the child of the South began to 
 dance. The delicate veil swayed and waved in 
 ever-changing folds around her body of pure copper 
 colour. Her dancing was wondrously graceful 
 it was beautiful beyond dispute. A strange scene 
 it was, enhanced by the very bright colours and 
 the heavy sweet smells of mysterious perfumes. 
 
 I stared in wonder at the dancing of this child 
 of Nature and the wonderful rhythm of her move- 
 ments. Faster grew the dance, the swinging and 
 circling and posing. Suddenly the girl seized one 
 of the torches and swung it in broad circles around 
 Ker head. The firelight fell with its ruddy glow 
 on her shining hair of black-blue. The hissing 
 torch seemed to be enveloped in the swaying veil ; 
 ever faster grew that mad whirling. After a final 
 lightning circle of the torch the girl fell down 
 exhausted. . . . 
 
 A low murmur of applause arose from among 
 the Arabs and many silver coins were thrown to 
 her on the mat. 
 
132 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 The woman who had sung the English nursery 
 rhyme sat there as one stunned ; she had forgotten 
 herself and forgotten her surroundings. " My 
 God," she kept on murmuring, " my God . . ." 
 
 I stole away and went slowly home to barracks, 
 
 worn out. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 A flowery belt of gardens surrounds the town. 
 In broad alleys, which had been trenches in days 
 gone by, stood groups of palm-trees and olive 
 groves, planted by the soldiers of the Legion many 
 years ago in the short intervals of peace. The 
 botanical garden of Sidi-bel- Abbes had also been 
 founded by the foreign mercenaries, and, to this day, 
 the Legion has the right to gather flowers from 
 the beds of the Jardin Public for its dead, and sends 
 three soldiers daily to keep the paths in order and 
 work for the gardener. In return for this the 
 regiment considers the Jardin Public its own private 
 property, and on Sundays that wonderful garden, 
 with its wealth of foliage and flowers, is the scene 
 of a red- trousered invasion. Not very far from the 
 Jardin Public lies the regimental garden, where the 
 Legion raises its vegetables and plants its potatoes. 
 I found it very funny when I was for the first 
 time commandeered to carry dung in the Legion's 
 garden it seemed to me a most peaceful occupa- 
 tion for a modern mercenary. . . . Far out 
 stretches the long line of flower gardens, with 
 their narrow foot-paths shaded by olive-trees. 
 Right at the end of the town, where the gardens 
 come to an end and the sand begins, there lies the 
 
THE CITY OF THE LEGION 133 
 
 cemetery of Sidi-bel- Abbes. Its showy monu- 
 ments, its well-kept flower-beds, and its silent 
 groups of trees do not give it any particular claim to 
 individuality. If you pass through the churchyard, 
 however, you will come to a large open space. 
 Many hundreds of grave mounds lie there. The 
 black wooden crosses are one like the other. This 
 is the last resting-place of the Foreign Legion's dead. 
 The Legion's churchyard. I was once comman- 
 deered to work there. An aged corporal, who 
 lived in a cottage in a corner of the cemetery, and 
 in the days of his old age filled the post of grave- 
 digger to the Legion, gave me gardening tools and 
 a watering-can. I walked along the long rows of 
 graves, pulling out weeds and watering the grass. 
 An indescribable feeling of loneliness overcame 
 me. 
 
 So impersonal, so poor, so barren are those 
 graves ! They lie quite close together as if even 
 in death the legionnaires must be drawn up in line 
 for parade. The crosses are so small, so roughly 
 painted, that one cannot get over the feeling that 
 sordid economy is practised even on the last rest- 
 ing-place of the legionnaire. The crosses are hung 
 with wreaths made of glass beads and with an 
 artificial flower here and there. The name of the 
 dead man is written on a small piece of board and 
 underneath the name stands his number. To this 
 comes the laconic addition : " Legion ^trangere." I 
 felt sorry for these poor fellows who even in the 
 last sleep of death had to bear a number which 
 reminded one of a convict prison. I went from 
 
134 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 cross to cross and read the various names. Almost 
 every nation in the world has contributed to the 
 graves in the cemetery of the Foreign Legion, 
 though the German names on the little crosses have 
 a large majority. 
 
 A regiment of dead soldiers lies buried here. 
 But it is only a small fraction of the Legion's dead. 
 The others sleep somewhere in the sands of Africa 
 where they fell. Thirteen hundred legionnaires 
 lie buried in Mexico. Hundreds and thousands 
 rot in the swamps of Madagascar. Indo-China 
 has been the death of hundreds of others. 
 
 The wind swept the dead leaves which fluttered 
 across from the cemetery of respectability over the 
 graves of the legionnaires. I looked at the endless 
 line of grave mounds and at the meaningless 
 numbers. And I thought of an old German 
 song: 
 
 Verdorben gestorben . . . Ruined dead! 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A HUNDRED THOUSAND HEROES A HUNDRED 
 THOUSAND VICTIMS 
 
 The hall of honour : A collection of ruined talents : 
 The battle of Camaron : A skeleton outline of the 
 Legion's history : A hundred thousand victims : A 
 psychological puzzle : True heroes : How they are 
 rewarded : The chances of promotion : The pension 
 system of the Foreign Legion 
 
 CLOSE by the prison, parted from the little square 
 of sand and gravel, which formed the prisoners' 
 exercise-ground, by a low brick wall, there stands 
 the Legion's hall of honour. 
 
 A tiny little door is built into the wall and bears 
 the inscription " Salle d'honneur." Day and night 
 there stands a sentry with fixed bayonet before the 
 regiment's holy of holies. For the soldiers of the 
 Legion it is forbidden ground, and the officers only 
 gather there on festive occasions. 
 
 Late one evening I stole through the little gate. 
 The sentry on duty was a man of my own com- 
 pany, whom I bribed with a packet of cigarettes to 
 let me through. 
 
 I found myself in a tiny garden. Fantastic 
 figures in mosaic work covered the ground ; every- 
 where were dense groups of palms and laurels, and 
 
 135 
 
136 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 a broad flight of steps led up to the vestibule in 
 Moorish style. As I entered the hall a flood of 
 colour met my gaze. The walls of the enormous 
 room were covered with pictures. Flanking the 
 entrance were the life-size portraits of two legion- 
 naires, the one in modern African campaigning kit, 
 and the other in the uniform of 1815, of the "Legion 
 d'Hohenlohe." On the walls were the portraits of 
 all the regiment's commanders and of the officers 
 killed in battle. The names of the dead were in- 
 scribed on a marble slab in golden letters. 
 
 I noticed with astonishment that the Foreign 
 Legion's list of commanding officers contained 
 many names unmistakably German. There were 
 the Colonels Stoffel, de Mollenbeck, Conrad, de 
 Hiilsen, and Meyer. And in very good company 
 were these German soldiers of fortune : the list 
 showed the names of some of France's most famous 
 soldiers and generals. Each of them had at some 
 time or other commanded the Foreign Legion, each 
 had won his first military laurels leading the regi- 
 ment of strangers : men famous indeed, the Legion's 
 pride : MacMahon, Canrobert, Eazain, de Negrier, 
 Saussier. . . . 
 
 Numerous pictures of battles represented episodes 
 in the fights in which the Legion had taken part, 
 and now and again among these paintings were real 
 works of art. A number of these pictures come 
 from the brush of Captain Cousin, while the alle- 
 gorical frescoes on the ceiling are the work of an 
 artist who wore the red breeches and blue coat of a 
 common soldier. The legionnaire Hablutzel the 
 
HEROES AND VICTIMS 137 
 
 artist who decorated the Salle d'honneur was a 
 humble ranker. 
 
 In the French Army the Legion's varied talents 
 are famous, and there are several stories besides that 
 of this humble artist. The history of the Legion 
 can tell of many such as he. 
 
 Five years ago the officers determined to build a 
 new mess. There was only one objection to the 
 fulfilment of this wish : the regimental coffers were 
 wellnigh empty. It was the colonel's idea to seek 
 help in the regiment itself. In spite of the fact 
 that the garrison at that time consisted of only one 
 battalion, it was found on inquiry to contain no less 
 than seven architects. These seven soldiers became 
 once more seven artists, and executed the plans for 
 the new officers' mess. They agreed on the style of 
 a Tonquin pagoda. Among the Norwegians of the 
 regiment were several carpenters who were experts 
 in artistic woodwork ; there were more than enough 
 builders and masons to be found, and the bankrupt 
 owner of a brickfield was glad enough to return for 
 a time to his old profession and assume the direc- 
 tion of a section told off to make bricks. In a few 
 weeks the mess was ready its cost was solely that 
 of the raw material. 
 
 The seven architects then once more shouldered 
 their rifles. 
 
 There is another famous instance. In one of the 
 countless fights in Southern Algeria, a company 
 got cut off from the main column and suffered 
 heavy losses in y a scrap with the Arabs. The 
 number of wounded was very great, and nothing 
 
138 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 could be done for them, as the doctors and 
 bearers were with the main column. At last the 
 captain in the thick of the firing called out to his 
 men: 
 
 " Are there any doctors among you ? " 
 
 Three legionnaires at once stepped forward. One 
 was a graduate of the Sorbonne, another had gained 
 the diploma of the University of Zurich, and the 
 third had attained to the rank of M.D. at a German 
 University. 
 
 Less strange, perhaps, but just as interesting, is 
 the fact that for the building of a fort in the Legion 
 three fortification experts reported themselves from 
 a single company : two quondam Austrian pioneer 
 officers, and a lieutenant from the British Royal 
 Engineers. 
 
 General de N^grier, who loved the Legion, used 
 to say that les etrangers had three inestimable 
 advantages : they were brilliant fighters, they 
 marched till they dropped, and there was nothing 
 that they could not do. He would undertake to 
 build an engine with his legionnaires ; from their 
 ranks he could assemble the faculties of a univer- 
 sity ; there were men among them who could not 
 only fight through a war, but they could also write 
 its history. 
 
 The fact that the Foreign Legion's band is the 
 best in the French army, and that it came back 
 covered with glory every time it went to Paris to 
 give concerts, is another proof of the many-sidedness 
 of the Legion's talents. Many an artist who once 
 played in the orchestra of one of the world's famous 
 
HEROES AND VICTIMS 189 
 
 theatres afterwards carried the Legion's trumpets 
 on his heavy-laden haversack. 
 
 I hardly need to emphasise the fact that these 
 legionnaires, who, by virtue of their professions and 
 social standing, belonged to a different class of 
 society, always represented the exceptions, and that 
 the majority of the men in the Legion were very 
 simple fellows, whose past had nothing at all 
 interesting about it. It is always the exceptions 
 that one notices. An editor of the Temps, who 
 visited Sidi-bel-Abbes and struck up a chance 
 conversation with me, said in astonishment : 
 
 " I was speaking just now to a professor of Greek, 
 and now you're a journalist. Is the Legion then a 
 collection of ruined talents ? " 
 
 In between the paintings in the Salle d'honneur 
 there stand the Legion's memorial tablets, with the 
 names of the battles in which the Legion took part 
 written on them : forty-eight great battles, fought 
 in all corners of the earth, from Indo-China in the 
 East to Mexico in the Far West. The most disas- 
 trous fight in the annals of the regiment was that of 
 Camaron, in Mexico, on April 30, 1863. 
 
 A creepy souvenir of this fight lies on a little 
 table in the Salle d'honneur an embalmed human 
 hand. It is the hand of Captain Danjou, who was 
 in command of a detachment of sixty men from the 
 third company of the Legion who were killed to a 
 man at Camaron. Over two thousand Mexican 
 irregulars set upon the detachment in the neighbour- 
 hood of the village of Camaron. The detachment 
 fought its way through the hostile cavalry to a 
 
140 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 farmhouse, entrenched itself there, and held out for 
 a whole day against the overwhelming odds. Five 
 times were they called upon to surrender, and five 
 times was the answer " Merde ! " 
 
 When the Mexicans at last took the house by 
 storm, they found heaped up before the door a pile 
 of dead. The few survivors were badly wounded. 
 A few hours later relief came. But the French 
 troops only found a heap of dead. Beside the 
 captain's body lay his severed hand. 
 
 Weapons from all countries adorned the walls of 
 the Salle d'honneur. Straight Mexican swords and 
 curved Arabian scimitars of pliant steel hung side 
 by side ; beside poisoned arrows from Madagascar 
 there were old-fashioned bayonets which had done 
 all sorts of bloody work in the Legion's service. In 
 the Salle d'honneur there are souvenirs of almost a 
 century of battles. 
 
 The Foreign Legion was founded in the year 
 1831 under the name of " The African Auxiliaries." 
 
 The continual fighting in Algeria used to decimate 
 the French troops posted there. In the reign of 
 King Louis Philippe the idea was started of reviving 
 the mediaeval institution of mercenaries, and of 
 raising troops for service in Africa composed entirely 
 of foreign adventurers. A Belgian adventurer 
 who called himself Baron de Boegard, with no 
 particular authority, but still without active opposi- 
 tion on the part of the King's generals, collected 
 around him a band composed of the doubtful 
 characters of all nations. He assumed the title of 
 lieutenant-general, and finally succeeded in per- 
 
HEROES AND VICTIMS 141 
 
 suading the military authorities that his fellows 
 would make capital stuff for service in Algeria. 
 About 4000 men took the oath of allegiance on 
 the French colours in Marseilles and embarked for 
 Africa. The French troops there turned up their 
 noses at these tattered soldiers, and the hostile 
 Arabs called them mockingly " the Bedouins from 
 France,"* because they were so poor and ragged. 
 The new-comers, however, plundered with such 
 voracity as to astonish even the French troops, who 
 were anything but scrupulous, and they were capital 
 fighters into the bargain. A royal edict, dated 
 March 10, 1831, sanctioned their incorporation 
 in a Foreign Legion of their own under the name 
 of the Legion Etrang&re, on the pattern of the 
 Legion d'Hohenlohe, which fought at the time of 
 the Restoration. The regiment consisted of seven 
 battalions, divided according to the different 
 nationalities of the men : 
 
 1st, 2nd, and 3rd battalions . Swiss and Germans. 
 4th battalion . . . Spaniards. 
 5th battalion . . . Italians. 
 6th battalion . . . Belgians and Dutch- 
 men. 
 7th battalion . . . Poles. 
 
 After a short time the authorities left off separat- 
 ing the various nationalities from each other and 
 contented themselves with teaching the foreigners 
 the French words of command as quickly as possible. 
 
 * The Arabs who had established themselves in the towns 
 used to despise the vagabond Bedouins. 
 
142 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 A period of fighting now began for the Legion 
 such as no regiment in the world has ever ex- 
 perienced. 
 
 Even in its first fights in Algeria the regiment 
 suffered heavy losses. Then the King of France 
 lent the Foreign Legion to the Queen Regent 
 Christina of Spain to fight against the Carlists. 
 For their services in Spain the Legion was to have 
 been given 800,000 francs, but this sum was never 
 paid. On the other hand, 3500 of the 4000 legion- 
 naires fell in action. A bare 500 returned to Africa 
 half starved and in rags. 
 
 New recruits joined there has never been a lack 
 of men ready to serve in the Foreign Legion. 
 Algeria was conquered after ceaseless fighting, in 
 which the battles of Condiat-Ati, M'Shomesh, Con- 
 stantine, and Zaatcha were only the more important 
 fights in an endless campaign. Even at this period 
 of its existence the Legion grasped the fact that its 
 mission was not only to furnish soldiers, but also 
 pioneers, labourers, and city-builders. They worked 
 hard, building town after town, and there is to-day 
 no city in French Northern Africa in which the 
 first European building was not built by l^gion- 
 naires. In the Crimean War the Legion was ordered 
 to Russia, where, in the Battle of the Alma, it was 
 the first regiment to come under fire and fought with 
 great bravery. In General Canrobert's despatches 
 29 officers and men of the Legion were mentioned for 
 bravery in the Battles of the Alma and Inkerman. 
 In the siege of Sebastopol the Foreign Legion was 
 very much to the fore an(J was cordially hated by 
 
, HEROES AND VICTIMS 143 
 
 the Russians. The besieged called them " the 
 leather-bellies," from the great African cartridge- 
 pouches which they wore in front. In the Crimea 
 their losses were enormous, and Napoleon III. 
 rewarded their services by naturalising a number of 
 the Legion's officers and men. 
 
 At that time the Legion never experienced years 
 of peace, only months of peace at the most, and 
 even these were few and far between. Les etrangers 
 were hardly home from the Crimea when a rebel- 
 lion among the Algerian Arabs broke out, which 
 led to the famous Arab expedition. The mighty 
 battle of Ischeriden brought the tribes of Beni 
 Jenni, Beni Raten, and the Beni Amer into sub- 
 jection. The regiment had a few hundred more to 
 add to its list of dead and had won new honours, 
 only, as a real regiment of mercenaries, to be trans- 
 ferred to a new field of battle. Real wandering 
 Ahasvers were these African mercenaries. This 
 time it was to Italy, to Magenta, that they were 
 ordered. Again they came back, their numbers 
 diminished by a thousand or more, and had to start 
 once more from Sidi-bel- Abbes on an expedition 
 against the natives in Morocco. 
 
 Thus passed the year 1860. During the next 
 two years the Legion was engaged in desultory 
 fighting against the Arabs and Bedouins without, to 
 their great disgust, bringing off any grande affaire. 
 
 In February the Legion embarked for Mexico 
 and witnessed the disastrous events of the short 
 imperial period. They made roads, working hard, 
 and occasionally brought off some mad exploit with 
 
144 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 the greatest bravery, adding that day at Camaron 
 to the Legion's roll of honours. The result of the 
 Mexican campaign, as far as the Legion is concerned, 
 is best shown by their losses : 1918 men dead and 
 missing; 328 died of their wounds; and 1859 met 
 their deaths from various illnesses. 
 
 On coming back to Algeria the Legion filled up 
 its ranks once more and was scattered in little de- 
 tachments over the province of Oran to play, for 
 the sake of variety, the part of settlers, digging 
 wells, building villages, and laying roads till the 
 year 1870. In the Franco- German War the Legion 
 first came into action at Orleans. All the German 
 legionnaires had, however, been left in Africa. 
 After the conclusion of peace the Legion helped 
 in the putting down of the Commune, where so 
 much blood was shed, and made itself thoroughly 
 hated in Paris. 
 
 As had been the case since the foundation of the 
 Legion, fights in Algeria began once more. The 
 rebellion of the Kaid Si Hamze, in the year 1871 
 and the years following, brought them fresh cam- 
 paigns. While de Negrier was colonel of the 
 regiment he mounted a part of the Legion on mules, 
 to be able to cover greater stretches of country, a 
 system which has been kept up to this day, and 
 which formed one of the first examples of mounted 
 infantry. Till the year 1883 the legionnaires re- 
 mained in Africa, and enjoyed a period of compara- 
 tive quietude, which only brought a few Arab re- 
 bellions and a few dozen skirmishes. Then, however, 
 they started off once more on their travels. The 
 
HEROES AND VICTIMS 145 
 
 Far East, Tonquin, was the scene of a colonial war 
 against a brave enemy and a murderous climate. 
 The victories of Bac-Ninh, Hong-Hoa, Soc-Nam, 
 and Chu are so many days of fame for these foreign 
 mercenaries, whose regimental history during these 
 fifty years will never meet its equal. In the year 
 1892 we find the Legion in Dahomey fighting against 
 King Behanzin, in the year 1895 in Madagascar. 
 At the present date we hear of the regiment chiefly 
 in Morocco. 
 
 This is merely a short sketch, a skeleton out- 
 line of the Legion's history one of the most no- 
 table histories that any soldiers' chronicler can point 
 to, the story of a band of homeless adventurers. 
 Their pay was always ridiculously small, their 
 punishments barbarous, and the discipline that 
 they were subject to more than hard. And yet 
 there were always thousands of recruits willing to 
 shed their life's blood, who did not serve under the 
 Legion's flag merely to earn their living, but formed 
 one of the best bodies of troops in the world. 
 What misery and misfortune must there be in 
 Europe to bring thousands and thousands of poor 
 and desperate men flocking to the Legion's standard, 
 whose total in the eighty years of the regiment's 
 existence must add up to an overwhelming figure. 
 I have been through all the French books on the 
 Legion to try and find the exact figure, but without 
 success. The exact strength of the Legion has 
 always been kept well to the background. The 
 two regiments have now and then reached an enor- 
 mous strength. Beauvoir, for instance, mentions 
 
 K 
 
146 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 that in the year 1895 a single company in Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes was 4864 men strong. 
 
 He gives the nationalities of the Legion in that 
 year as follows : 
 
 Alsatians 45 per cent. 
 
 Germans 12 
 
 Swiss 8 
 
 Belgians 7 
 
 Frenchmen 5 
 
 Spaniards 5 
 
 Italians 5 
 
 Austrians 4 
 
 Dutchmen 4 ; 
 
 From various countries . 5 
 
 The average strength of the two battalions 
 varies between 8000 and 12,000 men. The per- 
 centage of deaths from illness, above all fever, is 
 extraordinarily high, and when to this we add the 
 many thousands killed in battle, and consider that 
 desertions are very frequent, we come to the 
 astounding conclusion that in eighty years a good 
 deal over a hundred thousand men have served 
 under the Legion's flag. 
 
 In giving this figure I make no claim to accuracy. 
 It may be far below the mark or again it may be 
 a few thousands too high. 
 
 Be that as it may, a mighty army of men of al] 
 nations has served in the Foreign Legion, working 
 hard and suffering the most awful hardships under 
 an iron discipline that punishes even the most 
 trivial offences with the hardest of punishments. 
 
HEROES AND VICTIMS 147 
 
 The pay has never been higher than it is now ; 
 not enough to purchase even the trifles which a 
 soldier needs to clean his uniform and equipment, 
 to say nothing about his personal needs, be they 
 ever so small. The assertion that these hundred 
 thousand men have made the French Government 
 a present of their work and strength during all 
 these years, and all too often of their lives, is no 
 exaggeration. Even though the history of the 
 Foreign Legion, the history of that ever-fighting 
 band of men, reads like a romance of mediaeval 
 times, one is easily led to look at the matter from 
 the French standpoint and to make the pharisaical 
 assertion so commonly believed in France, that 
 the Foreign Legion is the scum of humanity, 
 useless human rubbish which has been turned into 
 useful dung for colonisation, if one may use the 
 expression, in the service of improvement. 
 
 The modern thinker is much more inclined to 
 ask himself in wonderment how it came that year 
 after year so many men were willing to sell their 
 lives for a country that was not their own. These 
 thousands have not even had the inducement of 
 high wages. 
 
 Here we stand before a riddle, before some 
 mysterious force which convinced these thousands 
 of desperate men that the African Foreign Legion 
 was their last refuge. The mighty deeds of the 
 Legion are still more of a riddle. All these men 
 have been clever enough to discover sooner or later 
 what a very poor sort of bargain they made when 
 they enlisted, and the Legion has always been a 
 
148 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 hotbed of seething discontent. As it is to-day, so 
 has it always been ; the only subject of conversa- 
 tion in the Legion is an endless discussion of that 
 all-important question: how and when to desert. 
 The legionnaire has enriched the French language 
 with a variety of strange curses to give expression 
 to his rage at the tyranny and infamous treatment 
 of which he is the victim. It is really a marvel 
 that these discontented fellows, soldiers who were 
 always on the eve of deserting, always forgot their 
 grievances when they came under fire. 
 
 One or two were perhaps men of the type which 
 frequently occurs in the Legion of to-day, who only 
 enlist to meet death in a form which appeals to their 
 fancy, and who volunteer for one dangerous ex- 
 pedition after another till they meet the bullet for 
 which they are so eager. But these have always 
 been the exceptions. To the others fighting has 
 always been a delight. 
 
 ... A detachment of men are stationed in an 
 isolated fort. The heat of the sun is merciless, the 
 hard work unbearable and the monotony of duty 
 gets on their nerves : the whole garrison becomes 
 restless and can only be kept in order with the 
 greatest difficulty. Then comes the command to 
 turn out : there is a prospect of soldiering in earnest : 
 the men are beside themselves with joy when 
 they have to fight they are relieved from slavery. 
 
 This enthusiasm and passion to get at the enemy 
 is the redeeming feature of many a ruined life. It 
 acts as a safety-valve : otherwise the men could 
 never stand the deadly monotony of their lives. 
 
 
HEROES AND VICTIMS 149 
 
 The soldiers of the Legion have never yet fought 
 just because they had to fight, or because their 
 officers urged them on to it or because they had to 
 defend their own wretched lives. The history of 
 the regiment can only tell of glorious attacks, of 
 furious charges made with a bravery that absolutely 
 disregards danger and death. These poor adven- 
 turers have their own individual ideas of honour 
 for which they are proud to give their lives and 
 which the only French general who ever under- 
 stood the Legion expressed in a few enthusiastic 
 words. It was General de N^grier who said : 
 
 Some soldiers can fight the legionnaire can die. 
 
 That is the legionnaire's idea of honour : his own 
 individual idea. He will never hear the signal 
 for retreat. I have so often heard the murmur 
 of discontent which runs through the ranks when 
 the hated call is heard at a manoeuvre. Eleven 
 times in its history has the Legion refused to obey 
 when the signal for retreat was blown. 
 
 In France the performances of the Foreign 
 Legion have always been recognised. It is true 
 that the recognition has taken no substantial form. 
 Its officers have always reaped the reward of quick 
 promotion, but the legionnaire himself has always 
 remained a poor devil without pay and without the 
 slightest hope for the future. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Five centimes daily wages ! 
 
 On paper the legionnaire is paid seven centimes 
 a day. That's what stands in the French army list. 
 
150 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Two centimes daily are, however, deducted for 
 messing, so that the real wages are five centimes 
 per diem. After the " second congeY' when he has 
 five years' service behind him, his wages are raised 
 to ten centimes daily ; a corporal gets twenty cen- 
 times a scale of pay which has perhaps a parallel 
 in the Chinese army, certainly nowhere else in the 
 world. 
 
 As a set-off against this miserable payment the 
 French books on the subject draw attention to the 
 chance of quick advancement. This, however, is a 
 trifle contradictory to the actual facts of the case. 
 In the Foreign Legion at present among a round 
 three hundred officers there is only one who is not 
 a Frenchman, a quondam officer in the Austrian 
 army, who worked his way up from the ranks. 
 Even among the non-commissioned officers the 
 percentage of foreigners is very small. It can 
 easily be understood that the colonel lays some 
 stress on the fact that the non-coms shall be 
 Frenchmen : this, however, renders the prospect 
 of promotion for a foreigner proportionately 
 small. 
 
 It is only now and again that a foreigner rises 
 further than the rank of corporal. When he is 
 specially talented he may become a sergeant but 
 hardly ever reaches the rank of colour-sergeant. 
 An exception to this rule is made in the case of 
 officers who have been turned out of other armies. 
 For these, the Foreign Legion has special regu- 
 lations. They are not asked to show any papers 
 nor are inquiries made into the reasons why they 
 
HEROES AND VICTIMS 151 
 
 were originally dismissed : all that is required is 
 a photograph showing him in uniform. They are 
 then let off all recruits' work and are sent to the 
 "peloton des l&ves caporaux," the non-commis- 
 sioned officers' school, are in eight weeks corporal, 
 and in four months sergeant. It is, however, a 
 great rarity when one of these men rises any 
 further. 
 
 Often enough one hears that the Legion's pension 
 is a liberal one. The Legion has a right to a pension 
 after fifteen years of service, and then he gets 500 
 francs a year. That sounds very fine. The fact, how- 
 ever, remains that a man who spends fifteen years in 
 all sorts of climates, and who works for fifteen years 
 with the energy required of a legionnaire, can easily 
 amass a small fortune. Another interesting fact is 
 that very few legionnaires are capable of serving 
 fifteen years. They die long before the time is up : 
 either from fever, overwork, or an enemy's bullet. 
 . . . No, the Legion's pension system is a mockery. 
 
 The only sort of compensation that remains is the 
 Cross of the Legion of Honour and the Mddaille 
 militaire, with both of which goes a sum of money ; 
 in the case of the Cross of the Legion of Honour a 
 very considerable one. These distinctions, however, 
 are so seldom conferred that they can hardly be taken 
 into the question as representing a complement to 
 the miserable pay, or as a possibility of earning any- 
 thing other than coppers in the Legion. 
 
 The only tangible reward that those heroes, to 
 whose deeds of honour the Hall of Honour bears 
 witness, have earned has been : 
 
152 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Five centimes a day those glorious days in- 
 cluded. 
 
 And what is the end of it all ? The legionnaire's 
 life in the Legion begins with the motto, " Work 
 without pay," and at the end of it he stands in the 
 street like a beggar, and does not know what in the 
 world to do for a living. Even in the rare cases 
 in which the climate and the hardships he has 
 undergone have not ruined his constitution, and 
 his health is still good, he is quite helpless. 
 
 I have spoken with hundreds and thousands of 
 these legionnaires who have served their time as they 
 lounged about the courtyard of the barracks in 
 Sidi-bel- Abbes, rejoicing that they had done with 
 the Foreign Legion for ever. They were dressed in 
 a dark blue suit, which is served out from the 
 quartermaster's office to those who have served 
 their time, being made of an ugly blue stuff, which 
 looks like blue sacking. Of course their clothes did 
 not fit them in the least, the trousers being either 
 too long or too short, and the coat looked like a 
 sack, for how could one expect them to take any 
 trouble about a good fit in the quartermaster's 
 office. As head-gear they wore an enormous flat 
 cap, such as the sailors in the ports on the Mediter- 
 ranean wear. This suit, together with boots, a 
 single pair of socks and a shirt, was all that they 
 possessed after five years of service. 
 
 They had also the right of travelling free of charge 
 to any town in France, and were given a franc a 
 day as long as their journey lasted. No legionnaire, 
 however, is transported to his real home, which is 
 
HEROES AND VICTIMS 153 
 
 generally outside France. The majority, with grim 
 humour, chose some town in the far north, generally 
 Dunkirk, in order that the journey might be as long 
 as possible. As a result of this the Mayor of 
 Dunkirk wrote and begged the French Minister 
 of War not to send any more legionnaires there. The 
 authorities had not the faintest idea what to do with 
 them ; in Dunkirk there was not even enough work 
 for the townsmen themselves. 
 
 A legionnaire who has served his time is thus 
 absolutely helpless, being stranded penniless in a 
 totally strange town. His clothes are such as to 
 prevent him applying for any work but that of 
 a labourer, and the only papers he has to show are 
 his certificates of dismissal from the Foreign Legion, 
 which are worth very little in France. There are 
 plenty of fine speeches made about the glorious 
 Foreign Legion in the French Republic, but there is 
 a prejudice against having anything to do with a 
 legionnaire in the flesh there. Everywhere he is 
 shown the door, and the poor devil begins a terrible 
 course of starvation. 
 
 How often have I seen these men come back 
 again with a batch of recruits to Sidi-bel- Abbes, 
 and their old comrades mockingly asking them why 
 they were in Africa once more. It was always the 
 same old story: for days and weeks and even 
 months starving and half perished with cold they 
 had 'struggled against their fate, and gone from house 
 to house seeking work until their clothes were mere 
 rags and their boots were worn out. Finally, they 
 had despaired of ever finding work, and had begun 
 
154 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 to coquet with the thought that in the Legion they 
 had at least had enough to eat, with the result that 
 in a few days they had sought out the nearest 
 recruiting-office, and had bound themselves for a 
 further five years of slavery. 
 
 This after five long years of work the gratitude 
 of France. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 "MARCH OR DIE!" 
 
 The Legion's war-cry : A night alarm : On the march : 
 The counting of the milestones : Under canvas : The 
 brutality of the marches : The legionnaire and the 
 staff doctor : My fight for an opiate : The " marching 
 pig " : The psychology of the marches : Excited nerves : 
 " Cafard " : The song of imprecations 
 
 WEEKS passed. Recruit time was over, and I was 
 serving with the troops. 
 
 From the very beginning I was anxious to do my 
 duty as well as I could. The real soldier's duties 
 were a pleasure to me, and like the other legion- 
 naires who daily debated the chances of receiving 
 marching orders, I longed with fantastical im- 
 patience for active service. 
 
 The Legion always seemed to me to be in a state 
 of feverish impatience, always on the jump, always 
 expecting marching orders. The regiment's traditional 
 fiery military spirit infected even the youngest re- 
 cruits. When vague rumours of a new rising of the 
 Arabs on the Morocco frontier penetrated to the 
 barracks, or when the Echo d'Oran with the laconic 
 brevity of official telegrams announced new skirmishes 
 in Indo- China, the news spread like wildfire through 
 the Legion's quarters. Everywhere you could see 
 
 155 
 
156 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 groups of legionnaires, speaking of their hopes of at 
 last receiving marching orders. When an espe- 
 cially exciting report had been spread, they some- 
 times stood in crowds before the regimental offices, 
 waiting for one of the clerks to rush down the stairs 
 with the news : 
 
 " Faites le sac." 
 
 Pack your knapsacks ! This is the old ominous 
 war-cry that sounds from room to room when the 
 Legion mobilises, the dry business-like password 
 calling the Legion to its military business. 
 
 The thirst for adventure, which is an element of 
 the Legion, as inseparable from it as poverty and 
 hard work, always lay in the air. 
 
 For the first time I heard the alarm sounded in 
 the middle of night. I jumped up out of my sleep 
 in a fright. " Aux armes ! " the bugle sounded from 
 the barrack-yard. The sergeants and corporals 
 rushed through the barracks crying the alarm, " Aux 
 armes ! "To arms ! 
 
 All at once the stillness of the night was turned 
 into a perfect pandemonium shouting and yelling 
 and roaring sounded from room to room, the 
 barracks were in an uproar. 
 
 " Faites le sac. En tenue de campagne 
 d'Afrique," the corporals shouted, and renewed 
 rejoicing answered them. 
 
 The " African field equipment " was not such a 
 simple thing, and in spite of all the yelling and 
 shouting we worked with feverish excitement, for 
 in ten minutes we had to stand in the barrack-yard 
 ready for marching. There was singing and 
 
"MARCH OR DIE!" 157 
 
 whistling everywhere while the knapsacks were 
 packed and everybody wondered whether we were 
 going " au Maroc " at last or whether the Arab 
 tribes of the South were in rebellion again. The 
 cartridge-cases were brought from the magazine and 
 their covers burst open with hatchets. The packets 
 of cartridges were thrown from man to man. We 
 tore off the cardboard covering and . . . saw that 
 they were blank cartridges. 
 
 " Merde ! " roared Corporal Wassermann. 
 
 Roaring and singing stopped as if by magic. As 
 blank cartridges only were served out, it could but 
 be a question of a short manoeuvre and the Legion 
 would not dream of working up enthusiasm for an 
 ordinary " marche militaire." In this case the short 
 manoeuvre march really extended over three hundred 
 kilometres three hundred kilometres to the South, 
 three hundred kilometres back again ; a total 
 distance of six hundred kilometres, which is about 
 four hundred miles. . . . 
 
 By the light of a lantern the companies formed 
 up in the barrack-yard. In a moment the baggage 
 and ammunition carts were packed, because the 
 Legion always carries sharp ammunition on the 
 march to be prepared for any emergency. Then 
 we went out into the night to the tune of the 
 Legion's march. 
 
 Any one who has once heard the march of the 
 Legion will never forget it, its peculiar sharp 
 rhythm broken by the bugles' storm signal. 
 The Legion's band is forbidden to play it 
 in the garrison or on the parade the regimental 
 
158 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 march is played before the enemy or on long 
 marches. 
 
 Sidi-bel- Abbes woke up as soon as the band 
 commenced to play in the quiet streets ; windows 
 were thrown open and out of the corners all the 
 riff-raff of the sleeping town came into view: 
 miserable-looking white men and dirty negroes 
 looked at the marching company with sleepy eyes 
 in high astonishment. In a few minutes we were 
 out of town and marched along the yellow sandy 
 road in dim moonlight. The marching order was 
 in column of four as is customary in the Legion. 
 
 I marched in the first row of fours of my com- 
 pany. In the front the four drummers plodded 
 along close behind our captain's white horse. 
 Abreast of the captain walked Lieutenant Garde- 
 Jorgensen, a Dane, a soldier of fortune. . . . 
 
 The silent march into the night was trying for 
 my burning curiosity, and I did a most unmilitary 
 thing : 
 
 " Where are we going to, Lieutenant ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 The officer nearly burst with laughter. 
 
 " I don't know myself where we are going to," 
 he said. " If you were an old legionnaire you 
 would not ask, my boy. We are marching. We 
 are probably marching for a long time. We are 
 always marching. We never know if we are only 
 going to manoeuvre or to meet the enemy. That's 
 how it is. Tiens ! will you have a cigarette ? " 
 
 The first rows were laughing and Smith was 
 shouting in his deep voice : 
 
"MARCH OR DIE!" 159 
 
 " Le sac, ma foi, toujours au dos." 
 
 Renewed laughter. Every one was talking and 
 wondering where we were marching to and how 
 long the march would last. Some of them 
 thought it was nothing but a night march ; 
 others discussed the probability of "real work" 
 being in sight. 
 
 " What do you think you know about it ? " said 
 Smith to me with a grin. " Nothing. We march, 
 sonny, and that's all there is to do. God and the 
 colonel know what's going to come of it." 
 
 We heard the clatter of a galloping horse and 
 turning our heads curiously we saw a bright spot 
 on the uniform of the rider, sparkling like a star. 
 The rider was the Commander-General of Algeria, 
 and the shining spot on his breast was the Grand 
 Cross of the Legion of Honour. 
 
 " Oh, la la," said Smith, shaking his head. " Tell 
 you what, Dutchy, if the old man himself has 
 got up in the middle of the night you may send 
 your little legs a message to get ready for a lot of 
 work. Now we shall march, sonny. You can bet 
 your bottom dollar on that. The old man there 
 means manoeuvring, heaps of it, or Arabs." 
 
 Milestone after milestone passed by and the 
 jokes ceased very soon, as the marching regiment 
 settled down to business. Silently the regiment 
 tramped onwards. The knapsack pressed heavily ; 
 heads went down and shoulders bent low to spread 
 the heavy weight on the back ; the gun-straps cut 
 into the shoulders until one's right arm was 
 almost lame and the painful prickly feeling caused 
 
160 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 by the non-circulating blood had grown perma- 
 nent. 
 
 After the first ten kilometres a shrill signal- 
 whistle sounded and the whole company wheeled 
 off to the roadside to rest in long line for five 
 minutes. I pulled off my knapsack and threw it 
 upon the ground with a feeling of relief, joyful at 
 getting rid of the heavy weight for a few minutes. 
 To my great astonishment, the other men kept 
 their knapsacks on their backs and at once threw 
 themselves at full length on the ground. Later 
 on I did the same. The halt was so short that one 
 lost priceless seconds in taking off and strapping 
 on the knapsack, seconds only, but even seconds 
 are precious for the marching legionnaire. 
 
 Five minutes is but a short span of time. But 
 never in my life has a time of rest seemed so 
 delicious, so beneficial, so reviving as when I lay 
 stretched out on the hot African sand for those 
 pitifully short five minutes. . . . 
 
 The company wheeled into column again and 
 trudged forwards on the endless road, whose 
 straight sameness was only interrupted by the mile- 
 stones. With each mile it became quieter in the 
 marching rows. The legs and back were strained 
 to the utmost, and a word spoken appeared a waste 
 of energy. One seemed to be a machine, marching 
 on mechanically behind the man in front when 
 once put in motion ; each man was sufficiently 
 occupied with himself. If any one in utter weari- 
 ness took a step to the right or a step to the left 
 out of marching line, he got an oath hurled at him 
 
" MARCH OR DIE ! " 161 
 
 you were so tired that even the slight touch of 
 your comrade swaying out of line was an extra 
 burden to the tormented body. 
 
 When the morning mists and the bitter cold of 
 the dawn were followed by the hot burning sun, 
 we had accomplished a march of forty kilometres, 
 and the time came when our legs refused to do 
 any more. When the signal sounded for rest, we 
 fell down helpless, and when we started marching 
 again, it looked as if a crowd of invalids and old 
 men were slowly wandering down the road. The 
 worn-out legs revenged themselves for the hard 
 usage they had received. During the halt the 
 flow of blood was hemmed in the limbs. Standing 
 on one's feet again, one felt a sharp stinging pain 
 in the soles. Every step was torture. For five 
 minutes afterwards one crawled along as best one 
 could, till one became once more an unfeeling 
 automaton. 
 
 Again the slow progress past the milestones. 
 At eleven o'clock in the morning we reached a 
 little village. The marks on the last milestone 
 said that we were fifty kilometres from Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes. We passed by the old rickety houses of 
 the village, and at a given signal the regiment 
 halted, the companies forming up on the dry, 
 sandy piece of ground to the left of the street. 
 
 Then followed the command : " Halt ! " and 
 immediately afterwards the order : " Campez ! " 
 
 In a moment we had piled our arms. The knap- 
 sacks were thrown to the ground and the folding 
 tent-supports and the tent-covers pulled out. 
 
 L 
 
162 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Then the corporal of each section stepped out of 
 the line, holding the tent-poles high above his 
 head to mark the tent line for the whole company. 
 Again a short command, and in a few seconds the 
 waste surface of sand was covered with little white 
 tents. 
 
 It was a miracle. We were so well drilled and 
 each individual knew his part so well that it only 
 took a few seconds to pitch a tent. With surprising 
 quickness the long rows of soldiers were turned 
 into a tent encampment and five minutes afterwards 
 the officers' tents were pitched in a final row. In 
 the meantime Madame la Cantiniere had hauled out 
 of her sutler's cart folding tables and benches, ready 
 to do a roaring trade with the tired-out legionnaires. 
 The heavy Algerian wine was indeed a blessing 
 after such a march and the poor devil who in these 
 marching days did not possess a few coppers felt poor 
 indeed. 
 
 In ten minutes the narrow trenches for cooking 
 were dug out and in twenty places camp fires 
 flared up simultaneously. The patrol marched 
 round and round the white " soldiers' city." The 
 food, consisting of macaroni and tinned meat, was 
 greedily devoured. 
 
 After this the quiet of utter exhaustion reigned 
 in the camp. The legionnaires lay huddled to- 
 gether in the tiny tents, on blankets spread out on 
 the ground, covered with their cloaks, while the 
 knapsacks served for a pillow. The rifles were 
 brought into the tents and tied firmly together 
 with a long chain by the corporal of each squad, 
 
"MARCH OR DIE!" 163 
 
 who fastened the end of the chain to his wrist as a 
 further precaution, for the Arabs had a habit of 
 creeping through the lines on a dark night and steal- 
 ing the much- coveted weapons from the tents. The 
 patrols of the Legion have standing orders to 
 challenge an Arab only once at night and then 
 to fire. Even in this first night the watch caught 
 a thief. The Arab was badly treated and he was 
 delivered up to the civil authorities in the village 
 the next morning in a horrible condition. 
 
 By seven o'clock in the evening the whole camp 
 was fast asleep, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. 
 
 An hour after midnight, in the flittering light of 
 a magnificent starry sky, the companies formed up 
 and continued the route to the South. This march 
 lasted eight days. On one day the troops covered 
 forty kilometres, making up the average again the 
 next day with fifty kilometres. The monotony of 
 this march and the physical strength and endurance 
 it claimed of each of us cannot be described. At 
 last, at the beginning of the real desert, we depended 
 on the oasis-wells with their poor supply of water 
 to quench our thirst, and the want of water was 
 added to our sufferings. At night, when starting 
 on the march, the field-flasks were filled. The 
 distribution of water was conducted under sharp 
 supervision. Every man got two litres of 
 dirty, muddy water. Company orders warned us 
 to save up half a litre for the morrow's " soupe." 
 On camping next day every legionnaire had to 
 give up half a litre of water to the mess of 
 his company for cooking purposes. Whoever had 
 
164 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 emptied his field-flask during the heat and weariness 
 of the march and was unable to deliver any water 
 only got a handful of raw rice given him ; he had 
 to get it cooked as best he could. 
 
 This is one of the many brutal rules in force on 
 these marches and there is method in it. Contrary 
 to most of the legionnaires, I have always seen 
 the necessity for the hard marching discipline. 
 Troops that have to march in such droughty 
 country must be able to economise their water 
 rations. This is simply a law of necessity. There is 
 another brutal feature of the Legion's marches : 
 cruel at first sight but it is really kindness to the 
 men. A legionnaire who faints on the march is 
 tied to the baggage-cart. A pole is pushed through 
 the sides of the cart at about the height of a man's 
 arms and the legionnaire roped to it by the 
 shoulders. The pole keeps him in a standing 
 position the cart rolls on. He either has to 
 march or he is dragged along the uneven ground. 
 Seeing the thing done for the first time, I was 
 filled with indignation at the apparent brutality of 
 this torture. But afterwards I understood. In 
 the wars in the South the fighting value of the 
 Foreign Legion depends solely on its marching 
 capability. Very often the ambulance is not able 
 to follow. If the legionnaire remains behind the 
 company in the desert, if only a kilometre, he is 
 irretrievably lost. Hundreds and hundreds of men 
 incapable of marching have found a terrible end in 
 this way. The Arab women, who are far more 
 cruel than the men, soon surround the helpless 
 
" MARCH OR DIE ! " 165 
 
 man, who suffers a painful death, after being 
 horribly mutilated and disfigured. 
 
 Separation from the troops means death. This 
 was not only the case at the time of the great Arab 
 mutiny, which affected the whole of Algeria, but 
 is the same to-day. Peace between the French and 
 the Arabs down in the far south of Algeria is 
 a myth. At the small military stations on the 
 borders of the Sahara little skirmishes are a daily 
 occurrence. When the station is alarmed and the 
 thirty or forty men garrisoned there set out to 
 pursue the pillaging Bedouin tribes, every legion- 
 naire knows well that now he must march, or if he 
 cannot march any more, he must die. March 
 or die ! 
 
 Death at the hands of Arab women ! The 
 legionnaire does not count the Bedouin or the Arab 
 as a personal enemy ; he is rather grateful to the 
 robber of the desert for being the cause of a little 
 change and excitement in the terribly monotonous 
 life on the border stations. But upon the Arab 
 woman the old legionnaire looks as upon a devil. 
 He thinks of the hellish tortures that wounded 
 men have suffered at the hands of Arab women, 
 he remembers the mutilated bodies of legionnaires 
 who had died an awful death after being tortured 
 for many hours. 
 
 In the fourth year of his service, Rassedin had 
 been ordered to one of the little Sahara stations, 
 where he had seen much of the cruelty of the Arab 
 women. Once a scouting party of his detachment 
 found a skeleton in the sand of the desert. Shreds 
 
166 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 of a uniform showed that the skeleton had once 
 been a soldier of the Legion. The skeleton's head 
 was lying between the legs. . . . Another time the 
 corporal of Rassedin's squad was missed at the 
 morning call. In the evening he had taken a walk 
 just in the neighbourhood of the station and had 
 not returned. After a short search they found 
 him. 
 
 " He was dead. But even in death I could see 
 the frightful agony in his wide-open eyes," Rassedin 
 declared. " Both legs were broken and bent back- 
 wards. The lower part of his body was slashed 
 to pieces, but none of his wounds was deadly. 
 They must have tormented him for hours. From 
 that time we made no difference between men and 
 women in fighting, but shot down every one. How 
 did we know that it had really been women who 
 had tortured the corporal ? The dead man 
 clutched a piece of a glass bracelet in his hand, 
 which he must have torn off the arm of his 
 tormentor in the struggle. Such bangles are only 
 worn by the Bedouin women." 
 
 That is the reason why the legionnaire has 
 come to look upon the Arab woman as the in- 
 carnation of the Devil. I have already recorded 
 the story of the soldier with the skull tattooed 
 on his forehead, who showed me a tobacco-pouch 
 made out of a woman's breast. 
 
 As an example of unnecessary, quite unjustifiable 
 brutality I will tell you what I had to suffer 
 
" MARCH OR DIE ! " 167 
 
 personally during the manoeuvre march. Whether 
 freezing under the thin blanket in the cold icy 
 nights in that climate of quickly changing tem- 
 peratures was the cause, or the bad water, or the 
 physical over-exertion of the marches, at any rate 
 I suffered from tormenting pains in the stomach. 
 Every few minutes during the march I got cramps 
 and could only painfully drag myself along, 
 doubled up like a worm. When we got to camp 
 my strength was done. I went to the doctor's 
 tent accompanied by the " caporal du jour " with 
 the sick list. The doctor, an army surgeon, whose 
 name I unfortunately have forgotten, pulled the 
 book angrily out of the corporal's hand, and roared 
 at him : 
 
 " On the march there are no sick men. Your 
 company ought to know that." 
 
 The corporal shrugged his shoulders. " By order 
 of the captain ! " he said laconically. 
 
 Now the doctor turned to me. 
 
 " What's wrong ? " 
 
 I briefly described the cramps in my stomach, 
 and emphasised that I only wished to ask for some- 
 thing to relieve the pain, an opiate, perhaps, and 
 that I intended to continue my duties. 
 
 He looked at me for a moment, and then said 
 contemptuously : 
 
 " What do you know about opiates ? To judge 
 from your accent you are an Englishman." 
 
 " No, monsieur le docteur, a German." 
 
 " Well, I will tell you something. We know 
 these little tricks. All the same if you're English, 
 
168 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 German or Hottentot, I take you to be quite a 
 common simulator. I shall give you a certificate 
 of being * non-malade ' not sick. Non-malade, 
 corporal." 
 
 I was crushed. Astonishment fought with anger. 
 At the very moment when the doctor was speaking 
 to me I was almost doubled up with pain. " Not 
 sick ! " That meant not only the loss of an opiate, 
 but also heavy punishment. Any one who is 
 declared by the doctor as " not sick " is at once 
 held guilty of simulation, and punished with the 
 usual four days' imprisonment. 
 
 I saluted and said : 
 
 " Non-malade, monsieur le docteur ? Without 
 any examination ? " 
 
 " Va-t-en ! " roared the surgeon. " Get out of 
 this." 
 
 The corporal shook his head as we went through 
 the camp, and advised me to be patient. He 
 believed that I was in pain, and he knew that that 
 " pig of a doctor " had already sent many a man 
 to his doom. But a complaint would only make 
 matters worse, he said. I did not answer and 
 thought of the coming night. I should be tied to 
 a peg in front of the watch -tent, and would be. 
 obliged to lie on the bare ground in the icy cold 
 without any covering because I had been im- 
 prudent enough to ask for a little medicine. Mad- 
 dening anger arose within me. When the corporal 
 had made his report, my captain sent for me : 
 
 " You have not been punished so far ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
" MARCH OR DIE ! " 169 
 
 " What is the reason of your simulating ? " 
 
 Then I lost control over myself, and in a fit of 
 excitement hurled reproaches and accusations at 
 the officer. The doctor was a fool and a disgrace 
 to his profession. His diagnosis was an infamous 
 and deliberate lie, and it was a disgrace that such 
 people held authority. I do not remember every- 
 thing I yelled out then, but it was a nice collection 
 of the choicest epithets rank insubordination! 
 At length my attack of mad fury ended with my 
 demanding to be taken before the commander of 
 the regiment, and I threatened (this must have 
 been very ridiculous) to complain to the French 
 Minister of War. 
 
 The captain listened to me quietly and said : 
 
 " I believe that you have been badly treated. I 
 will write a letter for you to the assistant surgeon, 
 who will give you medicine. I should not advise 
 you to send in a complaint to the regiment." ^ 
 
 Then after a pause : 
 
 " What do you really expect ? What do you 
 want ? We are in the Legion. You are a legion- 
 naire don't forget that again, legionnaire ! " 
 
 If I had not in my complete loss of self-control 
 ventured to air my opinions in language unheard 
 of in the Legion, I should very likely have left the 
 ominous peg in front of the guard-tent as a dead 
 man. 
 
 Thanks to the opium pills of the assistant surgeon 
 I was able, however, to march the next day with 
 the others, but not without exerting every spark 
 of my will-power. The time from one milestone 
 
170 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 to the other seemed endless. The expectation of 
 the five minutes' rest at the fifth milestone was 
 the power that drove me forward. I counted my 
 steps in order to make me forget the pain in the 
 mechanical occupation of counting. One hundred 
 and twenty steps represented one hundred metres ; 
 when I had counted ten times one hundred and 
 twenty, we had covered a kilometre, the fifth part 
 of the road to rest. . . . 
 
 At last we reached our paradise, the few minutes 
 of exhausted rest. And then the torment began 
 afresh. . . . 
 
 The manoeuvres in a desert covered with pecu- 
 liarly sharp stones, three hundred kilometres south 
 of Sidi-bel- Abbes, occupied exactly eight hours, 
 and from the standpoint of the Legion they were 
 superfluous and consequently useless. The develop- 
 ment of the firing-line, the skilled search for cover, 
 the rush of the bayonet attack, the understanding 
 of all the orders, the complete discipline under fire, 
 are things which, in the never-ending practical 
 military training of this fighting regiment, become 
 part and parcel of the legionnaire's flesh and blood. 
 The closing manoeuvre was (I heard our captain 
 discussing these matters with Lieutenant Garde) 
 nothing more than a small private entertainment 
 on the part of our colonel, who wished to show off 
 with his regiment; a military amateur dramatic 
 performance. On the other hand, the commander- 
 general had said to his adjutant that it was a great 
 pleasure to him to give his legionnaires an " airing." 
 The regiment had already idled about barracks for 
 
-MARCH OR DIE!" 171 
 
 six months, and might in the end forget that its 
 real home was amongst the sand of the desert, and 
 that it had no other object in life than to march, 
 march a lot, to go on marching. 
 
 The legionnaires knew this fad of the general's 
 well enough, and never called him anything else 
 but the " marching pig." The fat sergeant of our 
 first "peloton" used to say, with great lack of 
 respect : 
 
 " As soon as I see the fellow I feel tired. . . ." 
 When the general was still colonel and in com- 
 mand of the first regiment, he once met a drunken 
 legionnaire in one of the side streets of Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes. The man, only just capable of saluting, 
 got the mad idea to address his colonel. 
 
 " Eh, mon colonel," he stammered, " I am still 
 very thirsty. Ten sous, mon colonel." 
 The colonel treated him to a stony stare. 
 This look out of the hard eyes turned the legion- 
 naire sober in a moment, and a brilliant idea struck 
 him. 
 
 " You know I am the best marcher in my com- 
 pany, mon colonel." 
 
 At this the colonel smiled and gave him a five- 
 Iranc piece. 
 
 It is these little anecdotes and the rough jokes in 
 the jargon of the Legion that are typical of the great 
 weight laid on the marching performances in the 
 Foreign Legion, without regard to the wear and 
 tear of the human machine, without consideration 
 of the many lives that are lost. 
 
 Even General de Negrier, the only commander 
 
172 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 that the Legion loved because he loved the Legion 
 and knew how to come into personal touch with 
 each legionnaire, knew no mercy in the matter of 
 marching. When he was commander of the 
 Foreign Legion he did everything in his power for 
 his troops. Each legionnaire was allowed to come 
 to him with his personal affairs, every wounded 
 man was a hero in his eyes, a brave man, for whom 
 he could not do enough. But when he saw an 
 exhausted legionnaire stumble out of the ranks and 
 collapse during the terrible marches in Madagascar, 
 the expression in his face became hard and pitiless. 
 That was a grievous crime in his eyes. Then he 
 would cry out the three words that have since 
 become a proverb of the Legion : 
 
 " March or die ! " 
 
 Marches which no European commander would 
 attempt are nothing out of the common ; they are 
 the basis on which the Foreign Legion has won its 
 laurels. But they are also the foundation for ill- 
 ness, decline, and death. 
 
 In each of these marches is embodied the 
 principle of absolute disregard for human life. The 
 possibility of such disregard is one of the chief 
 advantages of the Foreign Legion in the eyes of 
 the authorities. From a military point of view the 
 marches of the Legion are splendid, a triumph of 
 training and discipline ; from a humane standpoint 
 they are the height of unprincipled exploitation. 
 No New York Jewish clothes-dealer, who keeps 
 hundreds of people at starvation wages at the sewing- 
 machines, does such a splendid piece of business as 
 
MARCH OR DIE ! " 173 
 
 ' la Legion," which for a mere nothing saps the life 
 from thousands of human creatures. It is not the 
 cruelties of the penal battalion, not the brutality of 
 punishments, not the poor devils who for some mere 
 trifle are shot under martial law, that illustrate best 
 the horrors of the Legion system. It is the marches 
 that do this ; the marches of the Foreign Legion 
 condemn the system of the Foreign Legion ! 
 
 Our manoeuvre march of 600 kilometres occupied 
 sixteen days. On the stages in the far south the 
 rations consisted almost entirely of rice, and to the 
 hardships of the daily 40 kilometres the pangs of 
 hunger were added. In spite of that the distance 
 daily covered remained the same. 
 
 I still suffered from pains in my stomach. To- 
 day it is a puzzle to me how I managed to march 
 300 kilometres in this condition in the burning sun 
 and to stand the cold during the nights. But 
 others were no better off. They marched with 
 open wounds in their feet ; with blisters between 
 neck and shoulder-blades, where the straps of the 
 heavy knapsack pressed ; with eyes inflamed by the 
 sun ; with severe bronchial troubles ; with bleeding 
 and festering sores on their thighs. Many limped, 
 and most marched bent wellnigh double, sunk 
 together a miserable, pitiful sight. Surly, silent, 
 raging bitterness pictured in the hard lines of the 
 face and in the tired eyes, we stamped onwards. 
 The only words heard were curses. 
 
 Our nerves were strained to bursting-point. 
 Over the whole troop lay the strain of over- 
 exertion, bodily and mental nerve-sickness. The 
 
174 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Foreign Legion has manufactured a special expres- 
 sion of its own for this mental state " Cafard." 
 
 The "cafard" reigned. The cafard " of the 
 Foreign Legion, a near relative to tropical madness, 
 is a collective name for all the inconceivable 
 stupidities, excesses and crimes which tormented 
 nerves can commit. The English language has no 
 word for this condition. In " cafard " murder 
 hides, and suicide and mutiny ; it means self- 
 mutilation and planless flight out into the desert ; 
 it is the height of madness and the depth of despair. 
 Many nights we were roused from sleep by a 
 pandemonium of noise. Legionnaires legionnaires 
 in " cafard " jumped round the tents in the dim 
 light of the watch-fires, roaring the old Legion song 
 out into the night. The " song " commenced with 
 abusing the corporal and went on through the 
 whole scale of charges up to the commander- 
 general in a horrible Legion French, of which the 
 chief advantage was its extraordinary power of 
 detailed expression. No officer was passed over in 
 this song and each one was carefully mentioned by 
 name, so that there might be no mistake. . . . 
 
 The song was painted with insults in rainbow 
 colours. The insinuation that Captain So-and-So 
 kept up his private harem with the funds of the 
 company was one of the most harmless, and with 
 the assertion that he was- an old monkey, the 
 register of the regiment commander's sins only 
 began. 
 
 At the top of their voices the " cafard " madmen 
 shrieked this song of insubordination out into the 
 
"MARCH OR DIE!" 175 
 
 still night, until the camp became lively. With 
 many oaths the sentries tussled with the mad 
 singers, and from out of the darkness bawling 
 voices roared applause. 
 
 Such things were not taken seriously. The 
 " singers " were bound to pegs in front of the guard- 
 tent over the night, to give them a chance to cool 
 down, and they had to join their companies at day- 
 break to march on. 
 
 When we got back to Sidi-bel-Abbes, our 
 uniforms and our spirits were in sad condition. . . . 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE MADNESS OF THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 An unpleasant occurrence : The last three coppers : 
 The Roumanian Jew from Berlin : Monsieur Viai'sse : 
 The Legion's atmosphere : The Cafard demoniacs : 
 Bismarck's double : Krugerle's whim : The madness of 
 Legionnaire Bauer : Brutal humour : A tragedy 
 
 IN the interval between the terrible exertions of 
 the great manoeuvre march and a period of hard 
 work in the sewers of the Arab prison of Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes, something I had long been dreading occurred. 
 Even by changing my few gold pieces into the 
 smallest of coppers, I could not spin them out 
 eternally. One fine day the sum of my riches 
 consisted of three thick, round copper pieces. 
 Although big and heavy, they were not worth more 
 than a few cents. 
 
 I lay stretched out on my bed, tired and vexed 
 Smith, who, being a bugler, was not obliged to 
 waste his strength in cleaning Arab sewers, was 
 chaffing me. He thought it a great joke to inquire 
 with friendly solicitude about the unpleasant details 
 of my work. 
 
 I did not like his raillery. Wishing for revenge 
 I remembered with grim humour that the state of 
 
 176 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 177 
 
 my finances would be of a certain interest to my 
 friend Smith. 
 
 " Hallo, bugler," said I. 
 
 Smith, lounging on his bed, muttered something 
 about privileged sons of the Prophet and inquired 
 if the Arab convicts had been satisfied with my 
 work? 
 
 " Bugler, I've no more money ! " I said. 
 
 He jumped up from his bed, looking at me 
 aghast. 
 
 " What d'you say ? " 
 
 " My money is finished." 
 
 Smith's face grew long. 
 
 He was evidently thinking of the countless casks 
 of wine lying stored in Sidi-bel- Abbes. . . . All at 
 once his face cleared. He had found a way out of 
 the difficulty. 
 
 " Send for some more ! " he advised. 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 " Nonsense," said the bugler, with the happy 
 confidence of the Legion. " They'll send you some, 
 a legionnaire always gets something sent him. Shall 
 I help you to write a real, nice, touching letter, 
 Dutchy ? " 
 
 Again I shook my head. But the bugler would 
 not let me off so easily. Going through the 
 different grades of relationship, he inquired as to 
 my connections. When I declared with intentional 
 spitefulness that they were all as poor as church 
 mice, he swore a little in Arabic and thoughtfully 
 repeated a chapter of the Koran, treating of the 
 duties of friendship. A little inspired by this, he 
 
 M 
 
178 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 asked for a whole hour about my former friends. 
 I told him that they were either dead or on the 
 point of starvation. The bugler thought this 
 ridiculous, but with much tact did not continue the 
 subject, coming, no doubt, to the conclusion that 
 I had either killed somebody or robbed a bank in 
 good old Germany. Nothing but that could keep 
 a legionnaire from writing begging letters ! 
 
 I let the philosopher keep his opinion. 
 
 After thinking deeply for a time, he muttered 
 nothing but a resigned, " C'est la Legion." 
 
 After a while he asked : " And is there really 
 nothing left ? " 
 
 Without saying a word, I pulled out my three 
 copper pieces. 
 
 Then a slight smile spread over his face. " Do 
 you know, we'll buy drink with that," he said softly. 
 As we went down the stairs to the canteen, he 
 wisely proposed buying two half-bottles instead of 
 a whole one, for the half-bottles were always filled 
 three-quarters full by Madame la Cantiniere. In 
 this way we got the fullest measure possible for 
 the three coppers. 
 
 My friend the bugler emptied the bottle with 
 great respect, till not a drop was left. Then he 
 became sad again, but said in a comforting way : 
 
 " Inschallah and if we haven't any money, 
 sonny, then we've got none. But if I were you, I 
 should after all write to somebody for a little 
 brass " 
 
 Only now, in my utter destitution, did I really 
 recognise my position. The few pieces of silver I 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 179 
 
 had still had in my possession, which in former times 
 would just have been sufficient for a few theatre 
 tickets or a few hundred cigarettes, had, in the land 
 of Sidi-bel- Abbes, been a fortune, and had saved 
 me from much wearisome, petty work. Thanks 
 to them, I had been able, after long marches or 
 heavy fatigue duty, to go straight into town 
 without having to bother about polishing and 
 washing. The smallest coin could purchase re- 
 lease from these burdens now all this was at an 
 end. For hours after I came off duty, I, like the 
 others, stood at the wash-tub, or tediously polished 
 my leather-work. 
 
 My horizon had narrowed ; now it only encircled 
 the drill-ground, barrack-yard, and my bunk in the 
 Legion's quarters. I spent hours lying on my bed 
 and staring at the whitewashed wall opposite, with 
 the long shelf on which the knapsacks were packed. 
 My interests were now quite taken up by all the 
 petty, trifling considerations of the Legion. I 
 quarrelled with the others whether it were really my 
 turn to fetch fresh water in the big earthenware 
 jug ; I disputed the highly important matter of 
 sweeping underneath my bed, and it was a question 
 of vital interest to me whether I was ordered to 
 scrub the bench or the large table at the great 
 Saturday cleaning. . . . The bench was so much 
 easier to do. 
 
 The days all passed in the same monotonous 
 manner. The grey sameness tired the brain and 
 made one indifferent to the little considerations 
 and small services that people should render to 
 
180 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 each other when living such a hard life, crowded 
 into so small a space. Everywhere the worst side 
 of human nature showed itself, and even the greatest 
 fool was soon clever enough to find out the bad 
 points of the man who worked beside him by day 
 and slept next to him at night. Petty malice, ill- 
 natured gossip, ridiculous intrigues formed the 
 atmosphere of the Legion. 
 
 I learnt to know a great deal about human 
 nature, and what I learnt was not inspiriting. 
 With the exception of jolly Herr von Rader, 
 Abramovici was the only man I knew who had a 
 spark of humour left in him. He was the queerest 
 character in the room. He declared he was a 
 Roumanian, but only spoke German, and that with 
 a terrible Berlin accent, which was, to say the 
 least, very strange in a Roumanian. When ques- 
 tioned as to his religion, he told the corporal that 
 he was a " pork-eating " Jew. I suppose he meant 
 that he had no delicate convictions. 
 
 The man was tall arid very thin and appeared to 
 be made of india-rubber. His long neck was sur- 
 mounted by a head like that of a bird of prey, 
 continually turning from side to side so as not to 
 miss an opportunity of stealing something from his 
 comrades. He had a vile mouth under his enor- 
 mous nose. In a whining tone he swore all day 
 long at providence in general and the Legion in 
 particular. Nobody could resist his volubility and 
 he was the first, the last, and the only legionnaire 
 who ever succeeded in never doing any work. 
 
 The explanation of his French nickname, 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 181 
 
 " Viaisse," was that the india-rubber man repeated 
 the Yiddish phrase of lament, " Wie haisst ! " 
 about ten times in one sentence. Once when he 
 made a complaint about something or other to the 
 captain, the latter had thrown up his hands in 
 despair and called out, " Viaisse, viaisse, sacre nom 
 de Dieu ! toujours viaisse what does the fellow 
 want ? " The whole regiment laughed at " Mon- 
 sieur Viaisse " ; he was never called by his real 
 name, Abramovici, but officers and corporals called 
 to him : " Eh, Viaisse, come here ! " He never 
 worked. He was only saved from punishment by 
 his inherent gift of humour. He was very tall, 
 his arms nearly reaching to the ground. If one of 
 his superiors ever ventured to give him any work 
 to do, the scraggy " india-rubber man " appeared to 
 personify a whole Ghetto. His eyes grew large 
 and staring, the nose purple, and the head moved 
 backwards and forwards like a pendulum. 
 
 Then Viaisse took a deep breath, and a mad flow 
 of words poured from his vile mouth, while the long 
 arms, with the outspread claw-like fingers, waved 
 frantically in the air. 
 
 "... Wie haisst ! nom de Dieu, de bon Dieu 
 de la Legion damn me, why should I work myself 
 to death ? I've had to drill the whole forenoon 
 and have got nix to eat but a poor soup. I'm a 
 stricken man and will have to get some extra food if 
 I am not to fall down dead like a dog, you jewel of 
 a sergeant. Wie haisst ! I am a ruined man if I 
 don't get some food at once. Well ? " 
 
 It is impossible to repeat it all. Words fail me 
 
182 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 when I try to reproduce my friend Abramoviei's 
 grand flow of language. In one respect he was 
 indeed a friend to me ; no one ever made me laugh 
 as much as he did. On the day of his arrival with 
 the depot-train from Oran, I happened to hear 
 when the sergeant of the company for the first 
 time ordered him to do some work. Abramovici 
 nearly got a fit at this unheard-of demand. His 
 arms waved frantically in the air like a windmill, 
 and wild words flowed from his mouth. 
 
 The poor sergeant wished to put in a word side- 
 ways. He wished to give a quiet command, he 
 wanted to get furious. But he could not. He 
 could only see with numb astonishment the lurid 
 red nose, he turned away to get out of the reach of 
 the " windmill arms," and at last fell down on the 
 nearest bed with a horrible Arab oath, and laughed 
 as he had never laughed before in his life. When 
 he at last recovered his breath again, he said in 
 broken German: "Oh. Gott in Himmel, cet 
 homme la, zu viel sprechen. Talks too much." 
 
 But Abramovici went on jabbering, until at last 
 his harangue ended in laments to the God of his 
 Fathers. 
 
 This was the w r ay he always got off one so 
 seldom hears a laugh down there that Monsieur 
 Viaisse was highly appreciated by officers and men. 
 
 He called me his friend. He began our friend- 
 ship with the conventional question : 
 
 " Wie haisst ! will you give me a cigarette ? " 
 
 Many a cigarette the Roumanian Jew from 
 Berlin got from me, as long as there was silver in 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 183 
 
 my pocket. In return he assured me of his high 
 esteem, and when longing for a smoke called me 
 " Herr Baron." When with the silver pieces the 
 cigarettes came to an end, our friendship suffered a 
 little in consequence. 
 
 I myself lived in a state of continual irritation. 
 The least trifle put me into such a rage that I can 
 hardly credit it to-day. Often enough I would tear 
 down my " paquetage " from the shelf, destroying 
 what had been wearisome work, just because some 
 trousers or jacket did not seem to be folded 
 correctly. It had been nothing else but " cafard " 
 when I had roared at the captain because the doctor 
 refused to give me an opiate on the march it was 
 exactly the same " cafard " in a milder form when 
 I roared at this or that comrade just because he 
 was in my way when I was busy polishing. My 
 vexation, my irritability, my brooding was the 
 madness of the Foreign Legion. 
 
 No legionnaire escapes from it. 
 
 The rest of my comrades in the room all had at 
 different times the " cafard " more or less seriously. 
 . . . Crowded together like horses in a bad stable 
 the men became dangerous. They fought over the 
 quarter of a litre of the Legion wine that was 
 apportioned to us every second day, and watched 
 with ridiculous suspicion that the next man did not 
 get more than he did ; one quarrelled over a piece of 
 bread ; one took one's neighbour for a thief who 
 wanted to steal a bit of black wax for leather 
 polishing. If one man got more work to do than 
 his neighbour, he cried murder and roared out 
 
184 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 about protection, and favouritism, and vicious pre- 
 ference. 
 
 This was the atmosphere in which the Legion 
 whims were developed. It was really strange how 
 many of the legionnaires had a screw loose, often 
 only harmless peculiarities, but which could increase 
 to madness. 
 
 All idiocy in the Legion is called " cafard." A 
 legionnaire is gloomy, sitting sullenly on his bed 
 for hours, speaking to no one. If you ask him 
 what is the matter, he will answer with a gross 
 insult. He sits thinking all the time and does 
 the queerest things. He has the " cafard." . . . 
 
 His madness may turn into a senseless explosion 
 or fit of fury ; men suffering from " cafard " will 
 run a bayonet through their comrade's body, 
 without any reason, without any outward cause. 
 Sometimes they rush out into the desert, sometimes 
 they tear every piece of their outfit into rags, just 
 to vex themselves and others thoroughly. 
 
 The " cafard " is at its worst in the hot season 
 when the sun burns down relentlessly from the 
 cloudless, deep blue sky, with the strange greenish 
 colouring of the horizon peculiar to Algeria. Then 
 the barrack-yard of the Foreign Legion lies deserted. 
 It is so hot that the stones on the yellow clayey 
 ground seem to move in the glimmering overheated 
 air. The legionnaire sentries wear the flowing 
 white neck-protector, and have stuffed wet cloths 
 into their kepis. 
 
 In the soldiers' quarters the legionnaires lie on 
 their mattresses and take their siesta, the strictly 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 185 
 
 prescribed rest from 11 A.M. until 3 P.M. The 
 white man is a useless object in the sun-blaze of the 
 hot season. In the infernal heat of the soldiers' 
 rooms the " cafard " has often been the cause of 
 great disaster. It has often happened that during 
 the siesta legionnaires have suddenly jumped out of 
 the window, three stories high, without any out- 
 ward cause whatever. 
 
 Once (very likely when affected with " cafard ") 
 I wrote down during the siesta a description of what 
 our men's room looked like. These few lines are 
 the only thing I ever wrote in the Legion : 
 
 " I lay on my bed half naked. The room was 
 as hot as a stove, filled with the stench of perspira- 
 tion. A brilliant strip of sunlight played through 
 the long room from window to window. Oh, the 
 heat, the heat. Even the walls felt hot. In the 
 bare, whitewashed room the men lay groaning on 
 their beds in all kinds of possible and impossible 
 positions. Some were swearing, others quarrelling 
 nothing brings on the "cafard" so quickly as 
 physical suffering. Two Spaniards were quarrelling 
 in the loud gesticulating manner of their race; a 
 German' in the next bed had fallen asleep, and was 
 muttering words of German in his dream. He was 
 dreaming of his mother. In the other corner of 
 the room a Frenchman was shouting frantically to 
 some one to give him a brush his own brush was 
 lost. His bed neighbour hummed a marching song, 
 half in Arabic, half in French, always with the same 
 refrain : 
 
 " f Si le caporal savait 9a, il dirait : Nom de Dieu.' 
 
 
186 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " Another man slowly and automatically rubbed 
 his leather straps, a third one informed everybody 
 that the sergeant was a rogue and was working him 
 to death. Here the German awoke. Disturbed 
 in his sleep he yelled out : ' Shut up you beggars.' 
 And the Frenchmen and Spaniards began to curse 
 on hearing German words. 
 
 " ' Monsieur le Caporal ' * sat up slowly and 
 tiredly and, leaning on his elbow, said in a low tone 
 of voice : 
 
 " ' A little silence, please.' 
 
 " The Spaniards laughed and a Frenchman said 
 under his breath, the damned ' casque a pique,' 
 meaning the Prussian helmet, might leave honest 
 legionnaires in peace during siesta. 
 
 " The corporal did not move. In his quiet even 
 tone he went on speaking : 6 Silence. You all 
 know that during siesta all noise is forbidden. 
 Legrand, for using the epithet " casque a pique," I 
 punish you with two days' barrack arrest. You are 
 not serving in a French line regiment, but in the 
 Foreign Legion. You understand, do you not, 
 that in the Foreign Legion no man is taxed with 
 his nationality. And in every respect it is very 
 unwise to vex your corporal. Ca y est.' 
 
 " At that the legionnaire laughed and quiet 
 reigned once more. 
 
 " My God, the heat was terrible. Then all at 
 
 * " Monsieur le Caporal " was Corporal Wassermann's nick- 
 name, because in the eyes of the legionnaires he was far too 
 particular in his manners and language when giving orders. 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 187 
 
 once a slasliing, metallic sound. One of the 
 Spaniards had pulled down the long bayonet that 
 always hangs over a legionnaire's bed, and was in 
 the act of assaulting his countryman and comrade. 
 The corporal sprang between the two and sent one 
 flying to the right, the other to the left. In a 
 second the whole place was in an uproar. The 
 two Spaniards threw themselves upon each other, 
 anxious to kill each other. The other legionnaires 
 laughed and howled out through it all. . . . 
 
 " At last the signal, ' Debout, legionnaires, 
 debout ! ' * Up, up ! ' sounded down in the yard. 
 The siesta was at an end." 
 
 This is what I wrote while lying half naked in 
 my bed, groaning at the heat. The description has 
 the advantage of the impressions of the moment. 
 This was what happened when the " cafard " was 
 at its "best." 
 
 Then again whole numbers of soldiers are affected 
 by it in the same way. The legionnaires of half a 
 company would put their heads together, planning 
 some act of desperation. One time it would be 
 mutiny en masse, at another time desertion in a 
 body. This madness is well known wherever a 
 company of legionnaires is stationed. In some 
 kind of form it is always present. It is the cause 
 of the horrible tattooing, of drinking and brawling ; 
 it is the reason for that peculiar longing for con- 
 tinual change, that restlessness typical of the 
 Foreign Legion. 
 
 The legionnaires are themselves not aware what 
 
188 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 influence the " cafard " has on them. When an 
 old legionnaire says grumpily, " J'ai le cafard," he* 
 is just telling his neighbours to keep clear of him, 
 that he has a bad fit of the blues, that it is advis- 
 able for his comrades to leave him alone. He has 
 no idea that a hidden power, like unto madness, is 
 making him act in such a manner, he only believes 
 himself to be in a bad humour. But the bad humour 
 rises and increases, often driving him to murder, 
 more often to suicide. The legionnaire cannot fore- 
 see the effects of the " cafard." The typical " cafard 
 demoniacs," the old grumpy fellows who do their 
 duty like machines and at other times hardly 
 speak at all, are instinctively feared, as if their 
 comrades knew that at any moment the least 
 trifle could lead to an outbreak of the dormant 
 madness. 
 
 I have witnessed such an explosion (that is the 
 proper term for it). We had a man in our com- 
 pany who had served for many years in the Legion. 
 He was a Frenchman and had worn the Legion's 
 uniform for more than ten years. He got out of 
 our way whenever he could, and when his duties 
 were over, slunk away into lonely corners of the 
 barrack-yard. Every fifth day he left the barracks, 
 on pay-day, to return reeling, evidently drunk, just 
 before evening muster. He never was rowdy, but 
 silent as usual, he threw himself upon his bed. 
 Where he went to, where he bought his wine, with 
 whom he drank it, nobody knew. 
 
 One pay-day, when the half of our company was 
 on guard-duty, he for once came back too late. 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 189 
 
 The barrack-gates had long been closed ; Smith 
 r and I were still sitting on the bench in front of the 
 guard-room, the sergeant and the other legionnaires 
 were lying inside on their bunks. All at once the 
 sentry at the gate called the officer on duty with 
 the laconic report : 
 
 " Sergeant la porte ! " 
 
 The gate ! Swearing, the man came with his 
 keys. Outside stood the grumpy old legionnaire, 
 swaying from side to side and his kepi at the back 
 of his head. 
 
 " Bertillon ? " the sergeant said, unlocking the 
 
 gate. " You old pig, you ought to know by 
 
 this time when to come home." 
 
 Bertillon staggered in and remained standing in 
 front of the sergeant. 
 
 " Be off with you and get into your quarters ! " 
 he commanded. " You can be jolly glad that your 
 own company is on guard duty, else you would 
 have been locked up at once. Allez schieb' 
 los ! " 
 
 The old legionnaire stared at the sergeant. 
 Suddenly, without saying a word, he hit him right 
 in the face with his fist. 
 
 " Aux armes ! " the reeling sergeant yelled. 
 Bertillon had pulled out his bayonet and was slash- 
 ing and hitting at every one, roaring like a wild 
 beast. A terrible tussle ensued. We were twelve 
 to one, but it took us more than a quarter of an 
 hour to get the upper hand of the " cafard " mad- 
 man, and every one had been more or less wounded 
 by his bayonet. At length we contrived to throw 
 
190 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 blankets over his head, and strapping him up like a 
 parcel, we threw him into the prison. 
 
 On opening the cell the next morning he was 
 found dead. At the post-mortem examination the 
 army surgeon stated that the bursting of an artery 
 in the brain had been the cause of death. 
 
 These are the worst cases of " cafard." 
 
 Generally the peculiar malady of the Foreign 
 Legion shows itself in all kinds of peculiar whims. 
 Smith's comical reciting of the Koran chapters 
 was such a whim. Many developed some kind of 
 fixed idea. 
 
 The cook of my company was an old legionnaire 
 who had served in the Legion for fifteen years and 
 was soon to be pensioned off; his fixed idea was 
 that he was Bismarck's double. His name was 
 Schlesinger. Like the German Prime Minister, 
 he had the stature of a giant, and in his heavy face 
 with the bald head, in the sharp eyes, there cer- 
 tainly was a slight resemblance to the features of 
 the " man of iron." The Legion, being good- 
 natured and having a great sense of humour, did 
 old Schlesinger the favour of never calling him 
 anything else but " Bismarck." 
 
 Herr von Rader was the first one to draw my 
 attention to him. He had heard of the cook's 
 peculiarity and . . . forthwith rushed to the kitchen. 
 He lounged about the door till the cook, getting 
 suspicious, came to see if the intruder intended 
 stealing. Hardly had von Rader seen him, when he 
 called out in astonishment : " Good gracious ! 
 that surely must be Bismarck ! " 
 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 191 
 
 The cook drew himself up majestically and 
 smiled condescendingly. 
 
 "Such a likeness!" in a surprised voice from 
 von Rader. 
 
 "Very like n'est-ce pas?" said Schlesinger, 
 highly flattered. 
 
 " Really wonderful ! You surely must be a 
 relation of the Bismarck family ? " 
 
 "That may be," nodded the cook, very much 
 pleased. This was quite a new idea. It had never 
 entered his head that he might be related to 
 Bismarck. 
 
 " You're certainly a relation," said von Rader in a 
 tone of conviction, " an illegitimate." 
 
 " Tres possible tres possible," the cook mur- 
 mured, proud and happy. "Are you a young 
 soldier?" he asked the man who had put the 
 wonderful idea into his poor old legionnaire's head. 
 
 " That's so," groaned von Rader. " I am like you, 
 and have once been something better. My father " 
 (von Rader lowered his voice to a whisper as if he 
 were disclosing the greatest secret), " my father was 
 a count ! " 
 
 Bismarck was much impressed by his announce- 
 ment. 
 
 " And now I must starve in the Legion," added 
 von Rader sadly. 
 
 " Pas ca," said Schlesinger, and, disappearing 
 into the kitchen, he returned with a large piece of 
 roast pork. "Tiens, camarade. To-morrow we 
 will talk again about about our ancestors. Mais 
 say nothing." 
 
192 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " Nothing," assured von Rader, putting his finger 
 to his lips. 
 
 From that day the pseudo-Bismarck and the 
 pseudo-count were seen together almost daily, and 
 von Rader always had a piece of meat in his knap- 
 sack, when we had to eat dry bread in the drill 
 pause. 
 
 If any one called the cook " Schlesinger " he was 
 deeply offended and did not answer ; even the 
 officers called him Bismarck. 
 
 There was another legionnaire I cannot forget- 
 Little Kriigerle. His whim was to steal grapes. 
 A very funny idea, for Kriigerle never ate grapes 
 himself ; he did not like them. With great trouble 
 he got them into the barracks and then gave them 
 away. 
 
 His one idea was to steal the grapes. 
 
 This was his cafard, his special rage against the 
 possessors of vineyards. But his cafard had its 
 own tale. . . . 
 
 Grapes were worth very little in Algeria, but 
 when every year at the grape harvest three 
 thousand legionnaires strolled in the evenings along 
 the paths beside the vineyards, when each legion- 
 naire ate about five pounds of grapes, taking another 
 ten pounds under his cloak then the Spanish grape- 
 farmers grew angry. They sent a deputation to 
 the colonel, declaring that his legionnaires were 
 worse than a locust-plague. The colonel abused 
 them all and sent out a command that all who 
 transgressed again would be punished. The 
 legionnaires laughed were a little more careful, 
 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 193 
 
 but stole quite as many grapes as formerly. Seeing 
 that it would not do like this, the Spaniards 
 engaged Arabs, gave them small-shot guns and told 
 them not to spare the offenders. The following 
 morning the army surgeon was much astonished, on 
 going his daily round, to find sixty-five legionnaires 
 wounded by small shot. 
 
 The extraction of all the small shot took so much 
 time that he got furious and went to the colonel 
 and complained. The latter, having an idea what 
 was the matter, examined the "invalids," who 
 promptly told a great story of having been suddenly 
 attacked by Arabs. The colonel laughed and 
 ordered them all to be locked up for four weeks on 
 bread and water. 
 
 Now the Spaniards were left in peace, be- 
 cause the grapes were not worth while being 
 shot and locked up for, the legionnaires said 
 sadly. 
 
 But from this time dated little Kriigerle's cafard. 
 Every day he went out to steal grapes. With the 
 greatest patience and cunning he crawled about in 
 the vineyards and stole grapes. Once he was shot 
 and ran right back to the barracks and into the 
 soldiers' room. Five minutes later, all the fifteen 
 men there were busily occupied in digging the 
 countless shot out of their comrade's back with 
 pocket-knives ! . 
 
 Kriigerle underwent the operation with more or 
 less tranquillity but it was worth suffering a little ; 
 if he had gone to the surgeon, four weeks of 
 cellule arrest would have been his lot. 
 
 N 
 
 
194 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 He swore great oaths but went stealing grapes 
 again the following day. 
 
 # # * * 
 
 The germ of madness, of tragedy, always lies 
 hidden in the cafard. I was a witness of the follow- 
 ing tragedy. 
 
 In our room in the corner by the window an 
 Austrian had his bed. His name was Bauer. He 
 had joined the company with a new batch of 
 recruits, shortly after I did, in good health, fresh 
 and curious like all the other recruits : an average 
 man, who did not easily learn the French words of 
 command, but did his work conscientiously Week 
 by week he got quieter. Stupidly he did his 
 work and spoke to nobody. In his free time he 
 sat on his bed moodily staring in front of him. Now 
 and then he would he punished for neglecting his 
 uniform, but this did not seem to make any im- 
 pression on him at all. He returned from prison 
 as moody as before. Nobody took any notice of 
 him. All at once the poor quiet creature became 
 the centre of attraction, an object of ridicule and 
 enmity, and for weeks the gossip of the Legion's 
 quarters. 
 
 Suddenly Bauer was attacked by a most ravenous 
 appetite. If possible he was quieter than formerly ; 
 but when the midday soup appeared, he fell 
 over it like a wild animal, devouring it greedily, 
 and greedily he watched us while we were eating. 
 When we had finished, he crept up to the table, 
 examining the empty dishes in the hope of finding a 
 few drops left. After this he would rush down to 
 
THE MADNESS OF THE LEGION 195 
 
 the kitchen to the old cook to beg some leavings 
 from him. The other men in the room were so 
 brutalised by their own misfortunes in life that they 
 only looked upon this poor devil as a clown to serve 
 for their amusement. 
 
 They threw pieces of bread into corners, and 
 yelled with pleasure when Bauer crawled about on 
 all-fours under the beds to look for the coveted 
 morsel. They poured petroleum into his soup, and 
 were wild with delight when the poor fellow never- 
 theless emptied the dish greedily. 
 
 Day by day Bauer grew worse. From the other 
 soldiers' quarters, even from the other companies, 
 the legionnaires came at soup-time to our room to 
 inspect the prodigy. All the time he sat crouching 
 on his bed, smiling vacantly and gobbling down 
 whatever he could get. He would gnaw at the dry 
 bone held out to him by a legionnaire with the 
 same grin as he would chew a piece of hard leather 
 given to him by another man. It was the beginning 
 of insanity. . . . 
 
 Soon the whole regiment was talking about the 
 man with the unappeasable appetite. If any one 
 wished to have a joke, they brought the glutton a 
 dry crust or a piece of hard Legion biscuit, just to 
 watch him devour it. For weeks these scenes 
 occurred, without the authorities thinking it 
 necessary to interfere. 
 
 The end came suddenly. One day we only found 
 half-chewed crusts on our table instead of the usual 
 daily portion of bread. Bauer had stolen away from 
 his work and eaten our rations ! 
 
196 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 The legionnaires threw themselves upon him 
 where their own comforts were concerned it was 
 no joking matter. One of them struck the poor 
 devil, who, biting and scratching and hitting at 
 every one, shrieked like a madman. The watch 
 was roused, and the poor fellow, chained hand and 
 foot, was carried across to the infirmary. 
 
 Three days after, the eleventh company con- 
 ducted a small black cart to the grave-yard of Sidi- 
 bel- Abbes. In the rudely made coffin on the cart 
 lay the remains of Legionnaire Bauer. In the 
 infirmary he had smashed his head against the wall. 
 . . . At the grave the captain said briefly, in a cold 
 voice : " Recevez les derniers adieux de votre chef 
 et de vos camarades." 
 
 This was his funeral sermon. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE DESERTERS 
 
 The Odyssey of going on pump : Death in the desert : 
 The Legion's deserters : A disastrous flight in a motor- 
 car : The tragic fate of an Austrian engineer : In 
 the Ghetto of Sidi-bel-Abbes : The business part of 
 desertion : Oran and Algiers : The Consulate as a trap : 
 The financial side of desertion : One hundred kilo- 
 metres of suffering : Hamburg steamers : Self-muti- 
 lation : Shamming : In the Suez Canal : Morocco, the 
 wonderland 
 
 EVEN Herr von Rader had the cafard the 
 fever to desert and his good humour diminished 
 perceptibly under its influence. In low cunning 
 the equal of the oldest and craftiest legionnaire, he 
 had quite got the trick of decorating himself, and 
 certainly got along much better than most of the 
 other recruits. But, as a veteran on the high road 
 of life, he had a very highly developed sense of the 
 practical side of human affairs. To take and not 
 to give had always been his most sacred rule of life ; 
 living without working was for him the acme of 
 human cleverness. Now, however, Herr von Rader 
 began to reckon out for himself, with a face that 
 got longer and longer, the Legion's pet arithmetic 
 example : that he had to do an immense amount of 
 work and got little or no pay for it. 
 
 197 
 
198 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 He found this very trying. 
 
 " My friend," he said to me once, " I'm off. 1 
 just guess 1 won't bother you with details, but I'm 
 sorry to have to tell you that this honourable regi- 
 ment will have to get on as best it can without me. 
 I'm going to clear out." 
 
 I warned him and kept telling him that it was 
 utter folly to desert in this happy-go-lucky way 
 without civilian's clothes and without any money. 
 
 Herr von Rader merely shook his head : " It's true 
 enough that I've a large balance of poverty ! On 
 the other hand, I've a thundering lot of impudence 
 an absolutely immense and overwhelming quan- 
 tity of impudence and I guess, in spite of every- 
 thing, I'll take that little pleasure trip and have 
 a look at the neighbourhood. Somewhere round 
 here there must be a nigger tribe who would 
 consider it an honour when a chap like me with 
 a real white skin does some swell conjuring for 
 them. Why, they'll jump at the chance of making 
 me their medicine man. Anyway, I'm off I If 
 you're a wise man, you'll come too. It'll be fine 
 enough even if it does not last for long. And I'll 
 tell you a secret : in the sergeants' room the big 
 service revolver is hanging comfortably on the wall. 
 I've a sort of an idea that that piece of property will 
 be off about the same time as me on French leave ! 
 That's a great consolation for me, quite apart from 
 the fact that I shall be damned glad to annoy that 
 fool of a sergeant ! Won't you come ? " 
 
 I declined with thanks. 
 
 Herr von Rader now sought other followers. 
 
THE DESERTERS 199 
 
 In every spare moment he gathered a following 
 from among the young men around his bed. They 
 lounged about and smoked cigarettes forging their 
 plans for flight. More than once I went and 
 listened to them and more than once I gave them a 
 warning, but they were so wrapped up in their idea 
 that all good advice was quite wasted. They 
 wanted to make a bee-line for the south, marching 
 only at night and avoiding all houses and villages. 
 Then they thought of going west and working 
 through into Morocco. One of them had found 
 an old map of Northern Africa, and on this 
 they had marked out their route. Their bayonets 
 and the revolver they were going to steal were 
 to be their weapons. They were not in the least 
 afraid of Arabs or Moroccans, and about provisions 
 they didn't worry themselves very much, as Herr 
 von Rader cold-bloodedly pointed out that they 
 were six strong men and could easily procure the 
 necessaries of life by force. In reality they were 
 very indifferent as to all these details. The only idea 
 that they had in their heads was that they would soon 
 have done with their wretched lives as legionnaires, 
 and roam at large, free men once more. 
 
 They were thoroughly infected with the fever 
 for desertion, which was ever to be found in the 
 Legion. Plans for flight and their feasibility were 
 ever being discussed in whispers, and this formed 
 a part of the Legion's atmosphere desertion was 
 always the favourite topic of conversation in quarters 
 and in the canteen. This was only natural. 
 There is not a single man in the Legion who does 
 
200 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 not sooner or later repent his folly, recognising that 
 it was the maddest thing he ever did in his life 
 when he signed that ominous contract in the 
 enlistment bureau. He has to work as he never 
 worked in his life before, and he has less money in 
 his pocket than in the most needy times of his civil 
 life. Even if he had been a miserable beggar, 
 a wretched copper had not such an enormous value 
 in his eyes nor had it been so hard to earn as 
 in these days of poverty in the Foreign Legion. 
 He is wretchedly poor, living under the strictest 
 military discipline, working hard and getting less 
 than nothing out of his life. At first the strangeness 
 of his surroundings has a certain charm : but the 
 harder he has to work and the oftener he becomes 
 acquainted with the heavy penalties which no 
 legionnaire escapes for long, the quicker comes the 
 lust for freedom. 
 
 The idea of flight gradually ripens in him. He 
 talks about it with his friends ; in every spare 
 moment he washes and cleans for the non-com- 
 missioned officers to earn a few coppers, and every 
 evening he sits with the veterans, with the old grey- 
 haired fellows who have breathed the air of the 
 Legion so long that they are no use for any other 
 sort of work, and who, as if under a spell, no matter 
 how often they have sworn never to don the red 
 trousers again, always come back again to the 
 Legion. They know Algeria like the palm of 
 their own hand and gladly sell their priceless 
 wisdom for a litre of canteen wine. But in this 
 case good advice is not worth much. 
 
THE DESERTERS 201 
 
 Money is the main necessity for flight. If good 
 intentions counted for anything in the matter, the 
 percentage of deserters would reach a fabulous 
 figure ; but the poor fellows who go out on foot, 
 without a penny in their pockets, very seldom get 
 away and are generally brought back in a few days 
 by the gendarmes. Hunger and thirst almost 
 always drive them into the Arab villages or to the 
 Spanish peasant settlements on the main roads, 
 which are so often patrolled that detection is un- 
 avoidable. Then is the wisdom of the old legion- 
 naire a vain thing indeed against enemies like 
 hunger and thirst the truant can do nothing. 
 
 In addition to the lust for freedom the legion- 
 naire has generally got the cafard : a feeling of 
 hatred for anything connected with the Legion, 
 the extraordinary impulse which leads him to 
 under takethe maddest and most hopeless things 
 rather than stay a day longer in the Legion. When 
 they are as ill as this the poor fellows run off no 
 matter where, without the slightest consideration or 
 preparation. 
 
 The Legion has coined a special expression for 
 this kind of desertion : " Going on pump " in 
 French, " Aller au poump." An extraordinary 
 word of unknown origin. 
 
 You "go on pump." One evening as we sat in 
 quarters cleaning our leather equipment, an old 
 legionnaire, an Austrian, suddenly got up. 
 
 "You damned set of fools," he cried, "I'm 
 going out. I'm going on pump." 
 
 As he spoke he buckled on his bayonet. 
 
202 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " I hope 111 never see the blasted lot of you 
 again." 
 
 He went out and never returned. 
 
 Several weeks afterwards there was shown to us 
 at roll-call the photograph of a body that had been 
 horribly maimed. It was the Austrian. A patrol 
 had found him by the Morocco frontier. The 
 officer in command, to whose equipment according 
 to regulation a camera belonged, had taken the 
 photograph. Each company in the Legion got a 
 copy of this awful picture, in order to identify the 
 corpse. The regiment has quite a series of these 
 pictures, all showing a man's naked body, hacked 
 about in the most appalling fashion. This is the 
 work of the Moroccan brigands, to whom the 
 legionnaire, staggering hither and thither under 
 the influence of the cafard, is a real source of joy. 
 His uniform and bayonet are priceless possessions, 
 easily won with a few sword-strokes. Besides, 
 there is the consideration that Allah and his 
 prophet reward a pious deed like torturing a dog 
 of a Christian. 
 
 Hundreds of legionnaires who have started out 
 in cafard have met with this awful death in the 
 desert, martyred, maimed and tortured. 
 
 In general, however, the legionnaire finds going 
 on pump, this flight into the desert, this mad rush 
 for freedom without any real goal and without any 
 sort of preparation, something quite natural that 
 everybody tries once at any rate in the course of 
 his career. In cafard. . . . 
 
 As a rule the men desert in little groups, with- 
 
THE DESERTERS 203 
 
 out any equipment but the uniform they wear and 
 the bayonet that clanks at their side. They go 
 forth at night, before nine o'clock, while the 
 barrack gates are still open, and run, under cover 
 of the darkness, madly through the sandy vine- 
 yards. They are miserably cold in the chilly 
 African night, and the pangs of hunger soon assail 
 them. But they keep going on : they are accus- 
 tomed to accomplish miracles of marching even 
 when loaded with the Legion's heavy baggage ; 
 without it they cover enormous distances. Five 
 minutes at the double with that long cat-like stride 
 of the Legion which never tires those who have 
 once got the knack of it and then five minutes' 
 marching. They go on like this without stopping 
 all through the night, and in the morning the 
 truants are a good sixty kilometres from the 
 garrison. Arriving at some lonely farm or other 
 in the grey of the morning, they obtain a crust of 
 bread and a sip of wine. It is very seldom the 
 sympathetic heart of the Spaniard that takes pity 
 on them : no, it is more often the bayonets which 
 advise him to be obliging and conciliatory. In the 
 daytime the poumpistes hide among the rocks or 
 bury themselves in a deep hole in the sand. When 
 night comes on they start on their way once more, 
 ever southwards, keeping their bearings by the stars 
 as they have learnt to do in the Legion for a very 
 different purpose it is true. When they hear the 
 sound of horses' hoofs they take cover in deadly 
 terror and lie for hours, still as mice, until the 
 patrol has long passed out of sight below the 
 
204 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 horizon. Thus the days pass by. Bands of ener- 
 getic and enterprising runaways often terrorise the 
 Arabs in the lonely settlements for weeks on end, 
 until the oppressed ones send for help and a fight 
 results in which the deserters are of course sadly 
 worsted. 
 
 Desperate fellows " on pump," who are deter- 
 mined to reach Morocco at any price, sometimes 
 succeed in getting hold of a rifle. They have then 
 a weapon to defend themselves against the brigands. 
 They cannot take their own rifles with them, for 
 with rifles they would never be allowed to pass the 
 barrack gates. 
 
 A tough old veteran, who knows the frontier, 
 marches with the utmost care. He knows that 
 there is a triple row of tents, a quarter of a kilo- 
 metre apart. One dark night he creeps through. 
 This operation takes a long time to carry out. 
 The tents, it is true, are a long way apart from 
 each other, and it seems easy enough to get 
 through. But this is only at first sight. For every 
 200 yards there stands a sentry guarding the line 
 till the next tent is reached. 
 
 The line of tents is almost endless. Were the 
 deserter to attempt to creep through direct or even 
 in a slanting direction, he could not possibly avoid 
 being noticed by one of the sentries who are 
 stationed in a triangular arrangement. But he knows 
 the trick. He creeps through 1 00 yards from a sentry 
 and then strikes off at an angle of 45 degrees 
 until he reaches the next row. Then straight on 
 once more and then off again at an angle. . . . 
 
THE DESERTERS 205 
 
 Now he works himself, crawling on his stomach 
 and burying himself in the sand for hours at a 
 time, up to a tent in the outside line. He steps 
 silently into the tent, feels about with care and 
 he is the possessor of a rifle and a cartridge-belt. 
 Thus armed he has now a chance of life and of 
 getting safely across Morocco. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 In most cases, however, after a few days of 
 golden freedom, a freedom consisting of perpetual 
 marching and ceaseless hunger, the man on pump 
 meets his fate in the shape of a band of mounted 
 " Goums," * and finds himself, after a very short 
 space of time, looking down the muzzles of their 
 revolvers. He then has to go back the same way 
 he came, fastened by a long chain to one of the 
 Goums' horses, panting and coughing with the 
 exertion of keeping up with the horse, which he 
 must do if he doesn't want to be dragged over the 
 sand and stones. Thus he is taken from station 
 to station till the garrison is reached. If he is 
 lucky enough not to have lost any part of his 
 equipment and has not been absent more than a 
 week, he is tried by the regiment, and gets oft 
 with sixty days' cellule solitary confinement in 
 the dark. If, however, any part of his uniform is 
 missing, he is tried for theft and desertion by the 
 court-martial in Oran, which is noted for its 
 Draconic sentences. 
 
 " Traveaux forces," penal servitude for years, is 
 then his fate a penalty which usually means 
 
 * " Goums " is the Legion's name for the Arab gendarmes. 
 
206 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 death, for there are very few constitutions that 
 can stand the terrible life in the penal settle- 
 ments. 
 
 Rader and his friends were poumpistes of this 
 type. One evening the man of strong language 
 and never-failing wit was missing when the roll 
 was called. Several others were reported missing 
 from various rooms, and the next morning the 
 whole company knew that six Germans had deserted 
 en bloc. 
 
 The sergeant of our section made a list of the 
 uniform and equipment Herr von Rader had left 
 behind. He cursed, as only a lazy sergeant in the 
 Legion can curse, his own personal bad luck because 
 the six deserters, being in his company, now gave 
 him a lot of work and worry. At the evening 
 roll-call the colour-sergeant appeared in person in 
 our room and ordered Corporal Wassermann to 
 take good care that no more of the men under his 
 
 charge deserted : otherwise he'd make it d d 
 
 hot for him. The captain, however, sent for all 
 the Germans in his company. 
 
 He made us a long speech in the company's 
 bureau : 
 
 We had all served our time in Germany and we 
 ought really to be content with the life in his 
 company. There was no flogging in the Legion ! 
 When anybody thought he had a ground for 
 complaint he should report himself at once to the 
 captain. The Legion was a regiment of foreigners, 
 and one nation was treated in exactly the same 
 way as another : a German soldier in it had 
 
THE DESERTERS 207 
 
 naturally exactly the same rights as every one else. 
 He would be very sorry if his men took to desert- 
 ing. It was quite hopeless to try ! A description 
 of the deserters had been telegraphed long ago to 
 all the stations in Algeria, the police all along 
 the coast were on the look-out, and in a few days 
 we should see the truants brought back to the 
 regiment. 
 
 " You only get into trouble when you desert, as 
 it is very heavily punished ! " 
 
 " The whole thing is this," said Smith when we 
 came back into our room. " The cap'n is champion 
 fencer of France, and thinks he must be always 
 practising in the fencing saloon ! He hasn't the 
 least idea what things really look like in the com- 
 pany ! " 
 
 Even a raw recruit knew much more of what 
 went on in the company than its leader. The non- 
 commissioned officers took very good care that the 
 captain did not learn too much. . . . 
 
 In reality the colour-sergeant and the non- 
 commissioned officers were all-powerful. The cap- 
 tain was merely what one might call the owner of 
 the business, who signed the punishment sheets 
 and reports which his managers laid before him, 
 without bothering his head about details. The 
 non-coms had the mess-allowance in their hands, 
 put down whatever men they pleased on the 
 punishment sheet for absolutely nothing at all, and 
 would very quickly have done to death any one 
 who made a complaint, even if at first he got his 
 rights by complaining. 
 
208 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " By the beard of the Prophet," laughed Smith, 
 "I'd like to see what happened to the chap who 
 made a complaint. Why, the whole bally lot of 
 non-coms would be down on him in less than no 
 time, and in a couple of weeks he'd be a Zephyr in 
 the penal battalion. That's what happens when 
 you complain, Signor Capitano. But he's quite 
 right about deserting is our champion captain. We 
 do see most of 'em again." 
 
 Then he went over to Rassedin and asked him if 
 he thought that Rader and the other five poumpistes 
 would get away. Rassedin shook his head and 
 laughed, making with his thumb and forefinger 
 that counting gesture which means paying all the 
 world over. 
 
 " No money," he said dryly. 
 
 The other veterans too thought that Rader and 
 the other five were not the sort of men who 
 would succeed in surmounting the difficulties of a 
 flight unprovided with money. 
 
 The flight of the six comrades was an inexhaus- 
 tible topic of conversation in the company. Smith 
 used to spin one yarn after another of mad bids 
 for freedom. Two of these histories I shall never 
 forget. 
 
 While Smith was in the second battalion at Saida, 
 there were two brothers in his company, two 
 Englishmen of good birth. The final and maddest 
 freak of their mad lives landed them in the Legion. 
 When their family learnt that they were wearing 
 the Legion's uniform, they did all they could to 
 procure their freedom. In vain ! Petitions to the 
 
THE DESERTERS 209 
 
 French Secretary of War were of no avail, and 
 the English Consul in Algiers naturally refused to 
 intervene. Finally the two brothers were sent a 
 large sum of money and they tried their luck at de- 
 serting. They were no farther than Saida station 
 when they were arrested and marched back to prison. 
 
 As soon as they were free again they made a 
 second attempt at flight and got as far as Oran. 
 But their descriptions had been telegraphed there 
 and they were arrested as they were going on board 
 the steamer. This time they were sent for six 
 months to the penal battalion. 
 
 The poor devils must have written despairing 
 letters home. Their relations were determined to 
 get them free at any price. With an English 
 merchant as go-between, they bribed a Levantine, 
 who hired an automobile and waited days and days 
 by Saida, in the neighbourhood where the convicts 
 had to work. After long delay the brothers suc- 
 ceeded in escaping at night from their tent. They 
 reached the appointed rendezvous in safety, found 
 the Levantine with his motor waiting for them, 
 and started off as quickly as the sand would allow. 
 The automobile, however, had attracted notice in 
 Saida, and the military authorities came at once on 
 the idea that these dauntless deserters had hit on 
 the unusual method of flight by motor-car. Tele- 
 grams flew from station to station, and the Arab 
 police barricaded a narrow part of the road a little 
 north of Sidi-bel- Abbes, which passes at this point 
 through a rocky part of the country, absolutely 
 impassable for vehicles. 
 
 o 
 
210 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 A short time afterwards the motor came up. 
 The runaways took no notice of the warnings of 
 the gendarmes who rode to meet them, and crashed 
 at full speed into the pile of stones. The motor 
 was overturned, the two deserters being killed 
 immediately. The Levantine was seriously in- 
 jured and brought into the hospital at Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes, where he died a few days later. 
 
 The other story is a really sad one. 
 
 An Austrian engineer had, as a young man, for 
 some reason or other enlisted in the Foreign Legion. 
 After a while he managed to escape and worked 
 his way home to Austria again. He must have 
 been a clever fellow, for he soon gained a distin- 
 guished position in his profession. Fortune smiled 
 upon him. He made a notable invention, which 
 made him a wealthy man. Ambition led him to 
 send the machine he had invented to the World's 
 Exhibition in Paris. In the distinguished engineer 
 nobody would recognise the deserter from the 
 Foreign Legion at least so he thought. But 
 cruel fate willed otherwise. Standing by his 
 machine at the exhibition he was recognised by 
 an officer from his company who was just then 
 on leave in Paris. 
 
 The officer did his duty as a soldier and had the 
 deserter arrested. At one blow the man who had 
 worked his way from the depths of poverty to the 
 top of his profession, who looked upon the days in 
 the Legion as merely a dark shadow on his life, 
 became once more a legionnaire. A few days in a 
 Parisian military prison, a few hours' journey by 
 
THE DESERTERS 211 
 
 rail in a prisoners' compartment, the short sea- 
 voyage to Oran, the cruel minutes before the court- 
 martial and then perpetual, blunting work in an 
 Algerian mine, truly a living death. And thus this 
 man had to live for many a long month, till the 
 horrible climate carried him off. , 
 
 Flight from the Legion is always a risky and 
 difficult undertaking, risky since there is always the 
 severest punishment waiting for the deserter who 
 gets caught. Even the possession of really plentiful 
 means is no guarantee for a successful flight. 
 There are so many hindrances to surmount, such a 
 mountain of difficulties to be climbed. 
 
 To begin at the beginning. 
 
 The Ghetto of Sidi-bel-Abbes supplies the 
 clothes. Buying civilian clothes is the first chapter 
 of a legionnaire's flight, the first part of his prepara- 
 tions for which the would-be deserter needs not 
 only money but also a finely developed talent for 
 haggling and bargaining. To open negotiations is 
 very easy : the legionnaire simply addresses a 
 passer-by in one of the little alleys and whispers to 
 him that he knows of some one who would perhaps 
 buy civilian clothes. In one case in a hundred the 
 passer-by shakes his head and goes his way. In the 
 ninety-nine other cases he looks pleased, and in just 
 such a whisper tells the legionnaire to follow him 
 into his house without attracting attention. Once 
 there, the bargaining begins. Heaps of old clothes 
 are fetched, until something is found somewhere 
 
212 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 about the customer's size. Boots, shirt, collar, 
 hat, and tie are all found. To an honest man 
 of business the transaction would seem somewhat 
 strange. 
 
 These Ghetto transactions have an underlying 
 principle of their own : furnish as poor goods as 
 possible at as high a price as you can get ! The 
 buyer is already nervous at the prospect of his 
 flight, so, in spite of all, he pays an absolutely 
 fabulous price. Fifty francs is usually the price of 
 an old suit, of which the trousers come, perhaps, 
 from Germany, the waistcoat from France, and the 
 coat from Italy, and which would be very dear at 
 ten francs. The "business friend" next claims a 
 gold piece for allowing the legionnaire to change 
 his clothes in his house ; a further gold piece 
 arranges for the care of his uniform, which a 
 legionnaire who is at all careful will not be per- 
 suaded so easily to leave in the lurch. For the 
 deserter captured without his uniform is tried for 
 theft by court-martial, and the military tribunal in 
 Oran always passes sentence of a long term of 
 penal servitude. But the man of Israel is willing 
 enough provided he gets a gold piece for it to 
 take care that the uniform and entire equipment of 
 his customer is safely preserved for the poor 
 regiment. Neatly bound together the uniform lies 
 idle for a few days. Then, one dark night, a youth 
 from the Ghetto throws the parcel over the wall 
 of the barracks. A ticket has been pinned on 
 beforehand, on which the name and number of 
 the owner has been written so that the gentle- 
 
THE DESERTERS 213 
 
 men in the quarter-master's office needn't cudgel 
 their brains wondering how to register this parcel 
 from heaven. 
 
 All so considerate ! 
 
 The runaway, however, wanders through the 
 alleys of the Jewish quarter and the streets of 
 Sidi-bel- Abbes, taking great care to avoid instinc- 
 tively saluting the officers and non-coms he meets. 
 His money, with which he bought his civilian 
 clothes, and of which there is still enough for 
 his railway journey and passage, is a mighty help 
 to him. 
 
 He must not attract notice anywhere ; he must 
 bridle his tongue, lest the curious French which is 
 individual to the Legion betray him, and he must 
 act the role of the harmless traveller to a nicety. 
 He naturally cannot begin his journey from the 
 station of Sidi-bel- Abbes, which is watched by a 
 commando of the Legion's non-commissioned 
 officers day and night. No, he must go on foot to 
 one of the stations on the way to his destination ; 
 the farther from Sidi-bel- Abbes he is, the less likely 
 he is to attract attention. So he makes a long 
 night march, keeping a sharp look-out for the 
 patrols of Arab police. Then comes the railway 
 journey to a coast town. The only two towns that 
 come in question are Oran and the town of Algiers, 
 since regular lines of steamers only run from these 
 two ports. Oran is mostly avoided, because it is 
 so near to Sidi-bel-Abbes, and because there are 
 so many of the Legion's officers to be met with 
 there. The journey to Algiers, on the other hand, 
 
214 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 is very expensive, and it often happens that the 
 truant's money is exhausted, and he lands there 
 penniless. In this case German legionnaires usually 
 go to the German Consulate, but only receive the 
 stereotyped reply that there is no money at the 
 Consul's disposal "for purposes like this." 
 
 The Consulate is not only powerless to help 
 them, but, into the bargain, is one of the best and 
 most efficient mouse-traps a French gendarme 
 could want. Old legionnaires always give you the 
 same warning: "For the Lord's sake don't go to 
 the Consul in Algiers." If, in spite of this, a deserter 
 does go to the Consul, he is merely told that he 
 cannot possibly gain assistance there. 
 
 And now the trap begins to do its work. The 
 police in Algiers know well enough that there are a 
 great many escaped legionnaires among the men 
 who come to the Consulate. When any one comes 
 out looking in the least bit suspicious, they receive 
 him tenderly and inquire lovingly about his papers. 
 The deserter is then done for. . . . 
 
 I should like to know whether the German Consul 
 in Algiers has the slightest idea that, in all inno- 
 cence, he has been the ruin of so many German 
 legionnaires. 
 
 The runaway whose money has been swallowed 
 up by the railway journey and who cannot pay his 
 passage over sea, must in most cases give himself 
 up for lost. It is generally only a question of a few 
 days till he is arrested. A careless word in a wine- 
 shop, a lame excuse when he seeks work and can 
 show no papers in short, the whole system of 
 
THE DESERTERS 215 
 
 denunciation which is so flourishing in Algiers 
 very soon hands him over to the police. 
 
 And even when he has money enough to pay his 
 passage on one of the Mediterranean lines, and has 
 his ticket safe in his pocket, he is not yet in safety. 
 Most of the runaways who have succeeded in 
 reaching Algiers make the mistake of taking a 
 passage on one of the German or English lines of 
 steamers, and is arrested at the eleventh hour as he 
 goes on board. It is on the foreign ships that they 
 keep a specially sharp eye. On the French boats, 
 on the other hand, which ply between Algiers 
 and Oran, you don't need any papers or even a pass- 
 port, because the authorities look upon these boats 
 as an internal French means of communication. 
 
 The route from Algiers to Tunis is absolutely 
 safe for the deserter. There, nobody notices him 
 in the enormous rush of the Levantine traffic, and 
 he needs no passport to cross to an Italian port. 
 But the expense is enormous. 
 
 Among the legionnaires who desert, the number 
 of those who can escape in civilian clothes by the 
 comparatively safe way of the railway and the 
 Mediterranean boats is very small. Travelling 
 costs money. ... A flight over the town of 
 Algiers needs really quite a little capital 150 francs 
 at least. This is a very low estimate, for the 
 purchase of clothes alone takes about seventy 
 francs. How few of the men in the Legion can 
 raise such a sum like this ! 
 
 In most cases they are poor devils who have no 
 one in the wide world who could or would send 
 
216 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 them a sum of this sort ; most of them never had 
 a franc to their name while they were in the Legion, 
 to say nothing of a gold coin. Men like this are 
 seldom successful in their flight, even when they 
 spend months and months in preparation and 
 discuss their route a hundred times over with the 
 veterans of the Legion. They don't run blindly 
 into the desert like the poumpistes, who don't 
 really want more than a few days of runaway 
 freedom. Their way is also to the coast. In 
 uniform ! On foot ! 
 
 In these two expressions there is expressed the 
 deserter's whole difficulty. Although the distance 
 from Sidi-bel- Abbes to the coast is only about 
 one hundred kilometres, not a very great stretch for 
 a legionnaire who is accustomed to long marches? 
 it is beset with danger for every yard of the way. 
 The runaway can be recognised a long way off by 
 his uniform. True, he only marches by night. 
 But the starlit nights of Algeria are very bright, 
 and he has to creep from rock to rock and from 
 hollow to hollow, to avoid being seen by the 
 patrols. By day he lies motionless in the sand. 
 He suffers hunger and thirst for days on end, and 
 lives on fruits, which he steals when hunger drives 
 him to risk discovery. 
 
 When he has reached the coast in safety, the 
 game of hide-and-seek begins anew. He often lies 
 for days in some little coast town, where the 
 Mediterranean tramp-steamers touch, concealed in 
 a shed or in some old boat on the shore, till a ship 
 carrying the German or English flag comes into 
 
THE DESERTERS 217 
 
 port. He swims out to this ship in the middle of 
 the night, climbs on board, and hides in one of the 
 ship's boats, or in the coal-bunker. He first makes 
 his appearance when the ship is on the high seas as 
 a more or less pleasant surprise for the captain. 
 He is now safe they can hardly throw him over- 
 board. There are, moreover, a great many captains 
 who shut their eyes when a runaway of this sort is 
 discovered, and even if the ship is still lying in port 
 do not give him up. There are some even who 
 carry their humanity so far as to stand a certain 
 amount of unpleasantness with the authorities for 
 his sake. 
 
 These are mostly German ships, and above all, 
 ships from Hamburg. Deserters from the Legion 
 land over and over again in the old Hansa town, 
 and again and again you may read in the Hamburg 
 daily papers that deserters have arrived with such 
 and such a ship, and have been taken charge of by 
 the police authorities. Now and then they go just 
 as they stand, in their uniform, with bayonet and 
 all the rest of it, to the paper's offices and tell the 
 worried editor about their life and sorrows in the 
 Legion. . . . 
 
 These are those who have had luck; the tiny 
 proportion of penniless deserters who are successful 
 in their flight. Not freedom but prison awaits the 
 large majority at the finish of their attempt. The 
 Arab gendarmes are paid a bonus on the deserters 
 they arrest, which amounts to many thousand francs 
 a year ! 
 
 The regiment is acquainted with many other 
 
218 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 means of desertion, if by " desertion " you under- 
 stand every means by which the deserter can 
 free himself from work in the Legion. In the 
 terrible heat of summer, when the difference in 
 temperature between day and night is simply 
 enormous, sickness, in many a grim form, stalks 
 through Algeria. The drinking water becomes 
 infected, and typhoid sets in : the legionnaire who 
 is tired of active service can be pretty sure of a 
 long spell of illness. 
 
 But to make quite certain he helps matters 
 artificially with an extraordinary measure in vogue 
 in the Legion : he drinks a mixture of absinthe and 
 milk. Every veteran in the Legion swears this 
 hellish drink never fails to bring on an attack of 
 fever ! The object of this suicidal method of 
 desertion is naturally to avoid work in the Legion 
 by a long spell of sickness its object is always 
 attained ; mostly so effectively that the man never 
 takes his place on parade again, but rests for ever in 
 the Legion's cemetery ! 
 
 In the same way self-mutilation may be met 
 with : the chopping off of a finger which renders 
 the legionnaire unfit for active service. Others 
 simulate illness or madness. This the suspicious- 
 ness and brutality of the doctors in the Legion 
 renders very difficult. Now and then a legionnaire 
 with a will of iron manages to play the comedy of 
 madness successfully. 
 
 The means employed are sometimes rather 
 drastic. Some years before I entered the Legion, a 
 Belgian served in my company who shammed for 
 
THE DESERTERS 219 
 
 a whole year. He dirtied the men's quarters in 
 such a fashion that his comrades fell upon him and 
 ill-treated him in every possible way, but he merely 
 answered their curses and reprisals with an inane 
 laugh. Neither curses nor blows seemed to make 
 the least difference to him. 
 
 This fellow had grit. He played his part as a 
 lunatic, as unpleasant for himself as well as for 
 others, without ever wavering. They shut him up, 
 they compelled him to do the hardest work, they 
 brought him into hospital and wellnigh starved 
 him or tortured him with drugs ; he was confined 
 for weeks in the dark, he was sent to the hospital 
 at Daya and treated with cold water all in vain ! 
 His method and his smile remained unchanged ! 
 After thirteen months the doctors felt themselves 
 checkmated, gave up the job as hopeless and 
 certified him mad. The colonel, purely out of 
 curiosity, sent for the lunatic, who must needs have 
 an attack of his particular malady in the regimental 
 bureau itself. 
 
 As soon, however, as he was home again in 
 Belgium, he wrote postcards to the officers and to 
 several members of his company. . . . He had foiled 
 them all and they were the idiots ! The most 
 unmitigated ass of them in his humble opinion was 
 the regimental doctor ! If possible the surgeon- 
 major in the Algerian corps was a bigger fool 
 still! 
 
 Tremendous energy is, however, necessary to 
 bring a sham of this sort to a successful issue, and 
 cases like this constitute a tiny minority. The 
 
220 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 doctors in the Foreign Legion are both clever and 
 suspicious and the result is that there is always a 
 good dose of Legion's brutality included in their 
 treatment. All those who reported themselves 
 sick, and hadn't some outward and visible sign of 
 their ailment to show, were treated from beginning 
 to end as shams. 
 
 Our medecin-major was an especial terror to the 
 legionnaires. I only came into personal contact with 
 him twice ; the first time was on a manoeuvre march 
 when he refused me the medicine I wanted, and 
 the other time was when I was vaccinated. There 
 was an epidemic of small-pox in Sidi-bel- Abbes, 
 and the whole of the Legion had to be vaccinated as 
 quickly as possible. We were marched by com- 
 panies into the great drill-hall where Monsieur le 
 Major and his assistants were at work. Such a 
 method of vaccination as this man employed I have 
 never seen in my life and I have been vaccinated at 
 least a dozen times. I am acquainted with every 
 method of vaccination, from the gentle lancet-prick 
 employed in Germany to the method in use in 
 America, where they pare away the skin with a 
 piece of ivory. As our company marched past the 
 assembled doctors in Indian file I saw to my 
 astonishment that the men were bleeding severely. 
 When my turn came I flinched involuntarily the 
 doctor drove the lancet three times so forcibly into 
 my upper arm that a regular fountain of blood 
 spurted out. 
 
 It was pure brutality. Nothing more or less. 
 This was typical of the man. It was his custom, 
 
THE DESERTERS 221 
 
 the first time a man reported himself ill, to send 
 him back to his company arid give him three 
 days' arrest for shamming. If the fellow appeared 
 again he tried the effect of emetics followed by 
 a long period of starvation. The only time he 
 was supposed to be reasonable was when he 
 saw symptoms of typhoid, which was his special 
 hobby. 
 
 The Legion was thoroughly afraid of the hospital ! 
 They were desperate fellows indeed who tried 
 shamming ! 
 
 The topic of desertion from the Foreign Legion is 
 wellnigh inexhaustible. When the transports sail 
 from Oran or Marseilles to Indo-China with relief 
 companies of the Legion on board, the Suez Canal 
 is a favourite means of deserting. According to 
 the Canal regulations the steamers must slacken 
 speed in the narrow straits of Suez, and the legion- 
 naire takes the opportunity to jump overboard. He 
 swims the short stretch to land and is then safe. 
 The sentries on the transports may not use firearms 
 in the international waters of the Suez Canal, and 
 therefore cannot fire on the deserter as he swims. 
 Neither is extradition from the English or Egyptian 
 authorities to be feared. 
 
 Several of * these transports from the Foreign 
 Legion pass through the Suez Canal every year, 
 and these desertions are so frequent that the 
 Ghetto of Port Said pays a fixed price of ten 
 shillings for the capital service boots of the 
 Legion ! 
 
222 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Desertions en masse occur now and then, but 
 these may be classed as mutinies rather than as 
 desertions. In Southern Algeria, in the loneliness 
 of the desert, the garrison of some small fort occa- 
 sionally breaks out, marching for the Morocco 
 frontier. The next bevy of troops soon brings the 
 runaways back again, and even if it comes to a shot 
 or two the superiority of the numbers against them 
 soon brings the mutineers to reason. A mutiny 
 like this generally ends in the mutineers being shot. 
 An act of this sort is nothing else than an outbreak 
 of madness caused by the dreadful monotony of 
 service on the lonely stations in the desert. It is 
 an outbreak of the cafard ! The poor devils should 
 be treated by a doctor instead of being sentenced 
 by a court-martial. 
 
 The Foreign Legion is a fruitful field for hypnotic 
 suggestion. In my time a number of legionnaires 
 deserted from Sidi-bel- Abbes, with the intention of 
 fighting their way through to Morocco. Morocco 
 was just then talked about till the idea became 
 surrounded with a sort of halo. The attempt it- 
 self was pretty hopeless the men were driven 
 to it by the suggestive power of the words, "le 
 Maroc." 
 
 Morocco was the Legion's fairyland, the land the 
 soldier longed for. Not a single day went by with- 
 out a rumour of fighting in Morocco raising excite- 
 ment in the Foreign Legion to fever pitch. Dark 
 war-clouds were gathering on the horizon. From 
 the frontier there came continual reports of the 
 intrigues of the pretender, and in the inland of 
 
THE DESERTERS 223 
 
 Morocco mighty battles were fought at short in- 
 tervals. Among the watchful officers of French 
 Africa every one was certain that the internal 
 troubles in Morocco were not merely the petty 
 splutterings of the usual native fireworks, but the 
 first sparks of a mighty bonfire. 
 
 The Foreign Legion knew of this ; then all that 
 was discussed in the officers' mess filtered through 
 to the regiment through its own various private 
 channels. 
 
 Orderlies came rushing into the barracks in a 
 fever of excitement as soon as they came off duty 
 in the mess and told their friends in the Legion all 
 about the heated debates that had taken place 
 and which all revolved around Morocco. The ser- 
 vants of the staff officers brought news of Moroccan 
 visitors closeted with their masters ; Spahis who 
 had served their time in the Morocco frontier gar- 
 risons and who were quartered on the regiment on 
 their way through to Oran, told how sharp duty on 
 the frontier now was, and how the garrisons were 
 perpetually being strengthened. 
 
 The veterans put their heads together and dis- 
 cussed the prospects of a bloody war ! They had 
 wonderful stories to tell of the golden treasures of 
 Morocco, of the jewels that the better classes wore, 
 and in their fancy they pictured an Eldorado of 
 plundered wealth and booty. These mysterious 
 rumours grew from day to day. More than half 
 of the regiment's officers were ordered to the little 
 frontier towns, and it was not unnatural when the 
 Legion found in this a sure sign of fighting to come. 
 
224 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 With a broad smirk, an orderly brought the news 
 that the colonel had engaged two masters to teach 
 him Arabic, and it was easy to see how proud he 
 was of the enormous supply of ammunition which 
 was sent out from France. Recruiting began with 
 zeal in the Spahi barracks opposite. Arab recruits 
 with their splendid horses joined daily. Sections 
 for telegraph duty went off to the frontier to see 
 to the old wires and to lay new ones ; volunteers 
 were called for to form a corps for the heliographs, 
 and veterans whose time was up got the tip from 
 one or other of the officers that it would be very 
 much to their advantage to stay on and not to take 
 their dismissal just then. ... 
 
 In this roundabout way, through non-coms, 
 orderlies, and soldier servants, everything was per- 
 haps very much distorted, but it all sounded very 
 probable and typical. The Legion is like a mighty 
 ear-trumpet through its countless channels it 
 gathers up the officers' gossip and intrigues for its 
 own uses, and really knows a good deal about the 
 state of affairs in Northern Africa ; it knows that 
 the military circles at the head of affairs in 
 Algeria have their own axe to grind, and that 
 the clever catch-phrase " penetration pacifique " 
 was formed in an officers' club, and that greedy 
 squinting at Morocco is as old as the occupation 
 of Algeria ! 
 
 It was as if every one stood under the ban of a 
 mesmerist. The longing for " le Maroc " spread to 
 the legionnaires, who gave practical evidence of 
 their longing for change and excitement, deserting 
 
THE DESERTERS 225 
 
 in crowds. Most of them met their deaths. The 
 border tribes cut their throats. 
 
 Others had more luck. In the army of the 
 pretender, the present Sultan, Mulai Hafid, there 
 used to be several officers who were once soldiers 
 of the Foreign Legion ! 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 
 
 The return of the poumpistes : The scale of punish- 
 ments in the Legion : Of spiteful non-commissioned 
 officers : The Legion's axiom : Sad history of Little Jean : 
 The punishment machine : Lost years : A legionnaire's 
 earnings in five years francs 127.75 : The prisons in 
 the Foreign Legion : Pestilential atmosphere : Human 
 sardines : The general cells : Life in the prison : On 
 sentry duty among the prisoners 
 
 " NOM DE DIEU ! voila les poumpistes ! " cried 
 the sergeant of the guard at the barrack gates. 
 Every one sprang up. We of the guard (my 
 company was on guard that day) crowded round 
 the gate ; the adjutant vaguemestre, the regi- 
 mental postmaster, ran out of his little office 
 opposite the guard-room ; a couple of officers came 
 up, and legionnaires streamed out from everywhere 
 in a wild rush for the entrance to the barracks. 
 
 " The poumpistes have come back ! " they cried 
 to each other. 
 
 It was in fact the truants from our company, 
 poor Rader and his five friends. They were indeed 
 a pitiful sight. Two gendarmes brought them in. 
 They were all six bound together by a thin steel 
 chain. Their dirty uniforms hung around them in 
 
 226 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 227 
 
 rags ; they were faint and emaciated and looked 
 dead tired. Their faces were scarred. Rader had 
 a blood-stained bandage round his right arm. In 
 their eyes you could read the deadly fear of the 
 punishment that awaited them. 
 
 They had, of course, been treated pretty badly 
 by the gendarmes. They looked round them 
 shyly, ashamed of their helplessness and of their 
 fetters. Herr von Rader alone had not lost his 
 sense of humour. 
 
 " How are you ? Glad to see you ! " he said to 
 the sergeant ! " I am back again all right." 
 
 In the little bureau of the officer of the day the 
 two gendarmes had their depositions taken and 
 received the usual receipt from the regiment for 
 the safe delivery of the deserters. They withdrew 
 looking very pleased with themselves, for this 
 receipt was worth 25 francs, entitling them to their 
 reward. 
 
 The poumpistes were kept waiting in front of 
 the guard-room, still joined together by the chain. 
 When Herr von Rader noticed me, he greeted me 
 with many head-shakings : 
 
 " Damned rotten business ! " he said quite loud. 
 " Mein Freund, they didn't make me a medicine 
 man after all. The conjuring didn't work ! All at 
 once five damned Arab gendarmes rode up to us, 
 holding their revolvers under our noses. I couldn't 
 conjure them away. . . . Positively couldn't ! 
 Well, and then we had to walk back. Say, I don't 
 care much about promenading when I am tied to 
 a horse's tail. And the beggar of a horse did run, 
 
228 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 I can tell you and I behind it because I was 
 tied to its tail, see ? " 
 
 " Silence ! " commanded the sergeant. " No 
 talking here." 
 
 When the formalities of the surrender were 
 over, the six deserters (1 was one of the guard who 
 escorted them with fixed bayonets) were marched 
 off to prison. 
 
 The keys rattled. The sergeant of the guard 
 considered it necessary to give vent to his bad 
 humour in many superfluous remarks about " the 
 dirty, ragged, good-for-nothing lot of poumpistes, 
 whom the penal battalion would soon cure of 
 skinning out," and gave Rader, who was the last 
 to cross the cell's threshold, a mighty kick. Rader 
 fell at full length. Then the heavy door swung to 
 behind them. . . . 
 
 A few years ago Herr von Rader and his com- 
 panions would have been sentenced to quite a 
 curious kind of punishment which was at that time 
 considered in the Foreign Legion to be a radical 
 cure for deserters a kind of mediaeval torture 
 which, by the way, was not kept for deserters 
 solely, but came into use very often. This was the 
 " silo " and the " crapaudine." 
 
 The silo consisted of a funnel-shaped hole in the 
 ground, broad at the top and pointed towards the 
 bottom. A regular funnel. Into this hole, used 
 as a cell for solitary confinement, the misdoers 
 would be thrown, clad only in a thin suit of fatigue 
 clothes, without a blanket or any protection at all 
 against the rain or against the sun, at the mercy of 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 229 
 
 the heat by day and the cold by night. The poor 
 devils would be left for several days in this 
 " prison.' They could not lie down, for the bottom 
 part of the hole was only one or two feet square. 
 They spent day and night alternately standing and 
 crouching, now in pouring rain, now in the burning 
 sun. They very soon became ill from the foul 
 vapours. When at length they were taken out of 
 the silo, they could neither walk nor stand and 
 had to be carried into hospital. Now and then a 
 silo prisoner died in his hole. 
 
 They say in the Foreign Legion that it was 
 General de Negrier who abolished the silo. When 
 he was inspecting Saida, he found a row of fifteen 
 silos, one beside the other, and every single one 
 occupied. 
 
 He had the unfortunates taken out and they 
 fell down in a dead faint on coming into the fresh 
 air. Thereupon the general had every one of the 
 silos filled up before his own eyes and forbade the 
 silo penalty ever being used again. 
 
 A more primitive but perhaps a still more brutal 
 torture was the crapaudine. The man to be 
 punished was simply tied up into a bundle and 
 thrown into a corner, his hands and feet being tied 
 together on his back, till they formed a sort of 
 semicircle. Such a crapaudinaire lay there help- 
 less day and night, totally unable to move. The 
 most he could do when he tried very hard was to 
 roll from one side to the other. For a quarter of 
 an hour a day he would be set free and got bread 
 to eat and water to drink. A day and a night in 
 
230 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 the crapaudine'was enough to deprive a man of 
 the use of his limbs several days gave him his 
 quietus. 
 
 This penalty has also been abolished. It exists 
 still in a milder form. In the field and on the 
 march an offender is often punished by being 
 bound to two posts driven into the ground. 
 
 To-day the punishments in the Legion are not 
 quite as cruel as they once were. At any rate 
 their cruelty is not quite so apparent. Rader's 
 friends got off with fourteen days' prison, while he 
 himself, after waiting in prison an age for his 
 trial, was sentenced by court-martial. The poor 
 fellow had lost his cap and belt and got a year's 
 penal servitude for " theft of equipment." What 
 happened to him there I have never heard. 
 
 There is no fixed penalty for desertion. In 
 general the poumpistes are treated pretty mildly 
 and sentenced, when they happen to be recruits, 
 to 40 to 120 days' prison. Only when they are 
 recruits. The veterans are always brought before 
 the court-martial. But this is merely the general 
 rule ; if, for instance, a deserter has managed to 
 get for some reason or another into the sergeant's 
 or some other non-commissioned officer's " black 
 books," the charge against him will be certain to 
 include the loss of some part of his uniform, even 
 when this is not in the least the case. The Foreign 
 Legion has its own ideas of the subjects of pains 
 and penalties. 
 
 Viewed from the surface of things, there actually 
 is a sort of scale of punishment. At the beginning 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 231 
 
 comes extra corve'e, which is quite bad enough. 
 For little omissions in the daily routine, for a 
 paquetage not quite accurately put together, or for 
 a button not polished well enough, the offender 
 can be sentenced by the sergeant of his section to 
 perform the heavy duties of the corve'e, while his 
 comrades are making their repairs or having in- 
 structions. As long as I served in the Legion I 
 was never punished for a fault of my own, not even 
 with extra corve'e 1 took good care not to give 
 the slightest excuse for punishment. More than 
 once, however, I made the acquaintance of general 
 corve'e. This was our sergeant's speciality. When 
 he inspected our quarters in the morning and found 
 some petty excuse for finding fault, he did not 
 bother with details, but just said : 
 
 " Eh, corporal ! A dirty, nasty room ! Disgust- 
 ing ! The whole lot of you extra corve'e this 
 afternoon, under your supervision, corporal ! " 
 
 Whereupon the corporal cursed and every fellow 
 in the room anathematised the sergeant as a " sale 
 cochon " a filthy swine. As the " swine," how- 
 ever, was clothed with the bristles of authority, 
 the extra corvee had to be performed in spite of all 
 curses and anathemas. 
 
 Pretty nearly as frequent as this was confinement 
 to barracks. This comes next in the scale of 
 punishments and is always connected with " salle 
 de police." Salle de police is only another name 
 for the general cells in the prisons. Above all the 
 offenders are not allowed to leave the barracks in 
 their spare time. In other respects they do their 
 
232 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 duty as usual. When their day's work is finished, 
 however, at five o'clock, they are called out every 
 half-hour and sometimes every quarter of an hour 
 to the drill-ground, where their names are called 
 over by the sergeant of the guard. Any one who 
 happens to miss one of these roll-calls finds himself 
 in prison for a week. In their fear of not hearing 
 the signal the men have not a single minute's quiet, 
 and can hardly find time to clean their kit for the 
 morrow. At nine o'clock, at the evening roll-call, 
 they must report themselves in the guard-room, 
 and are shut up in the salle de police for the night 
 in the general cells, which are filled to overflow- 
 ing. Sleep among the crush of men and in that 
 nauseating atmosphere is only possible for a few 
 hours, when the tired body demands its right in 
 spite of the disgusting surroundings. Next morn- 
 ing at five they are dismissed and have to perform 
 the usual routine work with the rest of the com- 
 pany. Eight days' " salle de police " are looked 
 upon as a very light punishment a sure sign that 
 the average legionnaire's susceptibilities are not all 
 too fine. 
 
 Salle de police was something quite in the ordi- 
 nary run of affairs for us : confinement to barracks 
 was a part of life in the Legion. In our quarters I 
 was the only man who had not made its acquaint- 
 ance, and that was the merest chance, luck plain 
 and simple. 
 
 No one excited himself about extra corvee and 
 confinement to barracks. Every single man in the 
 Legion had, however, a mighty respect for the prison. 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 233 
 
 Prison, arrest in the regimental lock-up, is the 
 Legion's real punishment. Imprisonment in the 
 Legion is made up of the hardest work possible, and 
 living under the most awful sanitary conditions ; 
 one can only form an idea of what this punishment is 
 like when one has had a look at the Legion's prisons.* 
 
 Next comes " cellule," solitary confinement on 
 starvation diet. 
 
 Then come the " Zephyrs," those condemned to 
 the penal battalion. Every two or three weeks a 
 transport of Zephyrs left the barracks in old ragged 
 uniforms. In the battalion itself they have to 
 wear the coffee-brown clothes of the convict. 
 
 " The sections for the reformation of incorri- 
 gibles " is the official name for this battalion, and 
 deportation to the Zephyrs is the severest punish- 
 ment which can be put into execution without the 
 authority of a court-martial. The official grasp of 
 the meaning of the word incorrigible is, however, 
 a trifle strange sometimes. Under the strictest 
 surveillance these unfortunates carry on pioneer 
 work in the far south. They make roads, they dig 
 wells, they build new stations in the most unhealthy 
 parts of Algeria, far removed from all civilisation. 
 They have to work as even a legionnaire, to whom 
 the hardest work is so familiar, would only work 
 under the sternest compulsion. And if extra pioneer 
 work is needed in the south, if, for instance, a new 
 road is to be built, the battalion's numbers increase 
 with amazing rapidity. It is really astonishing how 
 the number of incorrigibles in the Legion increases 
 * See close of chapter. 
 
234 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 just when the military administration needs men 
 for work ! 
 
 " Much work many Zephyrs ! " says the Legion's 
 proverb. 
 
 The scale finishes with the heavy military punish- 
 ments, from penal servitude to the death sentence, 
 and here the decision of the Algerian court-martial 
 in Oran is final. Its sentences are renowned for 
 their pitiless severity. To be brought before this 
 court-martial the legionnaire need not have com- 
 mitted any very grave offence. It is enough if he 
 has lost some part of his uniform. 
 
 In a well-known French historical work on the 
 subject of the Foreign Legion, Roger de Beauvoir 
 writes : 
 
 "Each of the two discipline sections is 150 men 
 strong : of these 300, 200 at least are in the penal 
 section for selling part of their kit. It used to be 
 the custom to 'let the stomach pay' for this 
 offence, i.e., the offender was put on bread and 
 water till he had replaced the lost equipment from 
 the mess allowance that was saved. This punish- 
 ment was finally considered too barbarously old- 
 fashioned, and the court-martial took its place, which 
 passes sentence of six months' imprisonment. The 
 legionnaires long for the old regime ! " 
 
 And thereby hangs a tale. 
 
 A very sad story, too. ... No sensible man will 
 attempt to dispute the fact that iron discipline is 
 essential for the lurid mixture of human material 
 in the Legion. If the justice of the Foreign Legion 
 was in practice what it is in theory stern but just 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 235 
 
 one could not say a word against it. It is, how- 
 ever, only just in theory, in the intention of the 
 military law-makers. In reality it is the justice 
 of unlimited tyranny ; made so by the individual 
 tyranny of officers and non-commissioned officers in 
 individual cases, and in general by an obstinate 
 tenacity to the letter of the law. 
 
 Every French officer and every French court- 
 martial acts under the time-honoured assumption 
 that the legionnaire makes a brave soldier, but is in 
 all other respects a thoroughbred rogue and knave, 
 and that one cannot go far wrong in assuming the 
 worst about him. The word of a superior is always 
 accepted as proof of guilt. There is no better 
 illustration of this than the everlasting heavy 
 penalties which are meted out for " theft of equip- 
 ment." This sort of theft exists, of course. Theft 
 is not a thing to be very much wondered at when 
 the men's wages are five centimes a day. 
 
 But many hundreds of innocents are punished 
 for this offence in the course of a year. 
 
 The favourite trick of non-commissioned officers, 
 when they have a spite against a man, is to inspect 
 his kit suddenly. Some trifle or other, a tie or a 
 couple of straps, are quite sure to be missing and 
 then there is the casus belli f " Lost is stolen 
 sold ! " Thus the axiom of the Legion's authorities, 
 against which the most positive assertions are of 
 no avail. Now and then an offender of this sort is 
 leniently treated, and let off by the regiment with 
 sixty days' imprisonment ; in the majority of cases, 
 however, he is tried by the court-martial. 
 
236 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 A typical case : " Jean the Unlucky " was the 
 nickname of a young Frenchman in my company 
 who had been sentenced in his second year of 
 service to six months in the penal section for 
 stealing a sash. He swore he was innocent, and as 
 far as I can tell he spoke the truth, as his mother 
 sent him twenty francs every month. Thus he was 
 quite well off according to Foreign Legion ideas, 
 and certainly need not have risked a heavy 
 penalty by selling his ceinture for a few sous. 
 The probabilities were in favour of his innocence, 
 but that did not help him. He was sentenced. 
 He survived his six months in the hell of the 
 penal battalion and was then sent back to his 
 company. 
 
 And now his troubles really began. At the 
 time of his trial he had, in his rage at the false 
 accusation, made more than one biting remark 
 about our adjutant and his little ways. This the 
 colour-sergeant never forgot. In spite of the fact 
 that Little Jean was a quiet fellow, who did his duty 
 to the best of his ability, a good soldier and a 
 capital shot, he kept wandering backwards and 
 forwards between the prison and the company, the 
 company and the prison. Nothing he could do 
 was right. Sometimes his boots were not properly 
 cleaned, sometimes his bed was a centimetre out of 
 the dead straight line in which beds must stand, 
 and at another time he had not stood properly at 
 attention at roll-call. Such were Little Jean's grave 
 offences against the holy spirit of the Legion's 
 discipline ridiculous accusations, which bore the 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 237 
 
 stamp of spite so plainly that even our careless 
 captain should have noticed it. 
 
 These human machines punished automatically, 
 without feeling, without thinking for an instant. 
 The sergeant's reports demanding punishment for 
 Little Jean's awful sins were signed automatically. 
 When the sergeant put him down for eight days' 
 confinement to barracks, the captain mechanically 
 increased the penalty to eight days' imprisonment, 
 because Jean le malheureux, coming from the penal 
 section, had naturally a very bad reputation. Then 
 came the commander of the battalion, who, not 
 caring to be outdone in matters of discipline, 
 doubled the dose. The sergeant's modest eight 
 days' confinement to barracks had now grown to 
 sixteen days' imprisonment. 
 
 But now came the embodiment of authority in 
 the regiment in the person of the colonel. This 
 colonel had his own ideas as to how one should 
 treat the pernicious elements in the regiment : 
 
 " Second-class soldier Jean Dubois, No. 14892, 
 llth company, is sentenced by the colonel to 40 
 days' imprisonment for continued slackness and 
 insubordination. " 
 
 That was read to us the next time the regimental 
 orders came out. 
 
 You see, the machine worked admirably. Its 
 mechanism runs with wonderful accuracy. Any one 
 who took an interest in the matter could work the 
 whole thing out in advance. Dubois did this. He 
 knew well enough what was waiting for him from 
 day to day he became quieter, from day to day 
 
238 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 sadder, so that at length he hardly spoke at all to 
 his comrades. He could do nothing to protect 
 himself; he hadn't even enough energy left for 
 flight. Good Lord, he had long lost that little bit 
 of energy he had, lost it somewhere down south 
 in the sunburnt wastes, where the penal battalion 
 works and suffers. 
 
 The machinery ground on. . . . Eighty days' 
 imprisonment was Little Jean's next dose. After 
 that he got sixty days' cellule just for a change. 
 If you consider only the number of days, you might 
 think he had got off pretty cheaply this time. Not 
 a bit of it. These sixty days were days of 
 starvation. For cellule means hunger and emacia- 
 tionawful hunger and awful emaciation. 
 
 After his sixty days of diet cure Dubois came 
 back to the company for just a week, if I remember 
 rightly. Then the machine began to work again. 
 This time it was a month he got. . . . Thirty 
 days' imprisonment for this incorrigible and in- 
 subordinate subject! No, one really cannot be 
 surprised that the colonel lost all patience. So he 
 refused to confirm the punishment and sent the 
 black sheep of the company to trial by court-martial. 
 And once more the machine began to do its work. 
 
 Two years' imprisonment, two years' penal 
 servitude in a fortress, for Jean le malheureux ! 
 
 With the next batch of convicts they carried him 
 off to Oran. I have heard nothing of him since 
 I do not know how he fared as a convict. In my 
 unconquerable optimism I am ready to assume that 
 this two years' interregnum did not do particular 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 239 
 
 harm to Little Jean's health and that he returned 
 home, having done his duty by the Foreign Legion, 
 dapper and cheerful as he used to be. Even this 
 supposition gives us a very pretty bit of arithmetic. 
 
 Jean Dubois' original period of 
 
 service . ... 5 years 
 
 Extra service for time spent in 
 
 the penal battalion . . 6 months 
 
 Ditto for regimental punish- 
 ments ..... 7 months 
 
 Ditto for imprisonment in for- 
 tress 2 years 
 
 Total time Jean Dubois had to 
 serve in place of his original 
 five years ... .8 years 1 month 
 
 In this optimistic piece of arithmetic my 
 optimism even goes so far as to assume that Jean 
 the Unlucky, during his two years of imprisonment 
 and during the rest of his period of service, did not 
 incur any additional penalties. 
 
 If I, however, compel myself to consider his 
 career from a pessimistic point of view, the sum 
 works out much more prettily. Dubois had not a 
 very strong constitution and it is quite possible 
 that the penal battalion, plus imprisonment, plus 
 starvation, plus despair, quite finished him 
 off. In that case the loss of a blue scarf, a spiteful 
 sergeant and the crass stupidity of a series of 
 officers have been the death of him. 
 
 But if Jean Dubois really got over his years of 
 prison when he returns home (he is a Frenchman !) 
 his strength will not be worth much in the worka- 
 day world. 
 
240 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 While I think of it. There is yet another very 
 pretty piece of arithmetic. Little Jean was a 
 thoughtful man. When he comes back home after 
 his long years of Legion he will perhaps sit down 
 and work out how much he has earned in these 
 eight, long, hard years. 
 
 The example would look like this : 
 
 Francs 
 
 First year of service, 5 centimes a day 18.25 
 
 Second year of service, 5 centimes a day 18.25 
 Third year of service, 5 centimes a day 18.25 
 
 Fourth year of service, 10 centimes a day 36.50 
 Fifth year of service, 10 centimes a day 36.50 
 
 Grand Total 127.75 
 
 The other three years? In these Little Jean 
 worked free, gratis, for nothing. These three years 
 were " rabiau," as they say in the Legion, of no 
 use, superfluous. In his three " rabiau " years Little 
 Jean naturally got no pay. Why should a convict 
 get paid ? 
 
 So you see Little Jean's earnings amounted to the 
 grand total of 127 francs 75 centimes earned in 
 eight years. Besides all this, this worthless fellow 
 had been fed all this time ! And clothed into 
 the bargain. 
 
 Yes c'est la Legion ! 
 
 The prison in the barracks at Sidi-bel- Abbes 
 used always to loom before me like a threatening 
 spectre. 
 
 On both sides of the entrance to the barracks, close 
 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 241 
 
 to the road, but separated from it by a high wall, lay 
 the two little houses with their flat tin roofs which 
 caught the sun's rays so pitilessly. Inside there were 
 rows and rows of cell doors in the long narrow corri- 
 dors. The single cells were a little more than three 
 yards long and one yard broad ; the general cells were 
 perhaps five yards square. There was no light, and 
 a little hole in the wall and an opening over the 
 door were the sole means of ventilation. The floor 
 was flagged or of clay. There was a wooden 
 bench in each cell, a water-jug, and an old tin 
 pail. The single cells and the general cells were 
 exactly alike in their " fittings " whether five men 
 or fifty were shut up in these cells made no dif- 
 ference ! They got, according to the regulations, 
 one water-jug and one pail ! I was never (and even 
 to-day that is a satisfaction to me) shut up in the 
 Legion's prison. But I have seen enough, when I 
 was on guard there, to have had quite enough of 
 the prison without any nearer experience of it. 
 
 I repeat : five yards square, thirty, forty, or more 
 occupants : an air-hole nine inches in diameter high 
 up in the walls and a tiny crack over the door. 
 
 Any of these cells would at once be condemned 
 by a veterinary as unfit even for a pigsty ! 
 
 Before reveille at five o'clock in the morning all 
 the sentries on guard were marched up to the 
 prison, and the sergeant opened the cells, where- 
 upon an awful stench streamed out. He read 
 out the names from the prison register, and the 
 prisoners came out of the cells into the passage as 
 their names were called. Then they began to clean 
 
 Q 
 
242 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 up. The pails were carried by two men, accom- 
 panied by a sentry, to the sewer openings in the 
 barrack-yard. When the bigger cells were over- 
 filled (and this was almost always the case) they 
 looked awful. The room was like a sewer, flooded, 
 pestilential. . . . To clean the cells there were only 
 a couple of old brooms in the prison. A few pails 
 of water were flooded over the floor, carelessly and 
 hurriedly, for the sergeants did not care about 
 wasting too much time on the " prisonniers." A 
 little water and a few strokes with the broom ! 
 What is not washed away trickles through the 
 cracks and crannies in the stone floor and forms a 
 new basis for pestilence. 
 
 The bowl of black coffee which forms the legion- 
 naire's breakfast is not given to the prisoners. They 
 get no breakfast. They are allowed to wash them- 
 selves at the basin in the corridor. Then they are 
 led out to work, on an empty stomach, frozen 
 through by the chilly African night spent uncovered 
 on a hard wooden bench, and faint from breathing 
 in that pestilential atmosphere. 
 
 All those who were sentenced to short terms of 
 imprisonment were commandeered to clean up the 
 barrack-yard, to split wood, and to break stones. 
 The prisoners with longer sentences, and those in 
 cellule, had to go out to the " march of punishment," 
 marching round in a small circle for two hours on 
 end, carrying heavy bags of sand, now and then 
 doubling for the sake of variety. When the 
 corporal in command was in bad temper he made 
 them go through a course of Swedish gymnastics 
 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 243 
 
 into the bargain. This was tremendous work when 
 burdened with the heavy sack, and it strained the 
 muscles and nerves in a way that nothing else 
 could. 
 
 At ten o'clock the prisoners were given soup. 
 They never got full rations, since as long as they 
 were in prison their mess allowance ceased as well 
 as their pay. 
 
 The soup is thin, and the piece of meat which 
 swims in it is as small as may be. . . . Their bread 
 rations consist of half of what they get in the 
 company. The prisoners in solitary confinement are 
 placed on starvation diet. Their soup consists of hot 
 water with little bits of potatoes and bread-crusts, 
 and they only get this every other day. In the 
 interval they have to live on bread on a quarter of 
 the Legion's bread rations. One must have seen how 
 terribly emaciated these poor fellows become in a 
 few days to be able to do justice to the barbarity 
 of a system which has three main ideas : under- 
 nourishment, overwork, frightful sanitary con- 
 ditions. 
 
 After they have finished "dinner," their work 
 begins again. The drill suits had got dirty, and 
 bore signs of the nights they had gone through. 
 The operation, too, of emptying the tin pails can- 
 not be performed without the suits being con- 
 siderably the worse for it. But the drill suits were 
 only changed when an inspection by the colonel 
 was imminent, and clean underclothes were a 
 luxury absolutely unknown in prison. 
 
 The sergeants on guard always considered it an 
 
244 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 important part of their duties to treat the prisoners 
 as badly as possible. In the prison it simply rained 
 curses. Many sergeants took an especial delight 
 in inspecting the prisoners every three hours 
 throughout the night. They had to come out into 
 the yard, and the sergeant read their names and 
 numbers by the light of the lantern, taking as long 
 about it as he could, while the poor wretches had 
 to stand there motionless in their thin clothes for 
 half an hour in the cold night air. This would be 
 repeated three or four times a night. In this way 
 the sergeant manages to while away his dreary 
 night on guard, and had in addition the pleasing 
 sense of having played his little part in the regi- 
 ment's system of justice. Under discipline in the 
 Foreign Legion they understand a series of varia- 
 tions, improvements or otherwise, on the mediaeval 
 systems of torture. 
 
 It is merely the petty offences against discipline 
 that are punished in these hovels. 
 
 I was on the watch in the narrow corridor of one 
 of these prisons, pacing to and fro on the cold flags 
 with fixed bayonet. Eight hours before the poum- 
 pistes, Rader and the rest of them, had been brought 
 in. Through the narrow opening between the wall 
 and the prison, a little strip of starlit sky could 
 be seen, and down the narrow passage the cold night 
 wind howled. But it could not drive away the 
 pestilential stench which hung heavy over the 
 prison and which was perpetually being increased 
 by the vapours from the ventilation holes and the 
 tiny openings in the cellules. This awful smel] 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 245 
 
 tortured my nerves and rendered sentry-go in the 
 prison anything but pleasant. 
 
 Besides Rader and his fellow-deserters, there 
 were forty others in the general cell. When at 
 ten o'clock at night the sergeant inspected the 
 prison and the cells were opened, I saw how the 
 men lay huddled together on the wooden benches, 
 man to man, like sardines packed in a tin. But 
 in spite of this scarcely twenty out of the forty 
 prisoners could find room on the bench. The 
 others crouched in the corners, sleeping with their 
 knees drawn up to their chins ; several lay on the 
 bare floor, filthy though it was. It was freezing 
 cold for them in their thin drill clothes. The 
 prison blankets they had been given were hardly 
 worth calling blankets, ancient rags, so thin that 
 one could see through them like a veil and so small 
 that the men had the choice of covering their feet 
 or their bodies ; the blankets were not big enough 
 to do both. They were stiff with dirt and most of 
 them w r ere alive with vermin. In the daytime 
 they were just thrown into a corner of the cell. 
 
 It was no wonder that the men who had just 
 been shut up in this cell could not sleep. Once I 
 heard Rader ask gently who was doing sentry. 
 He must have stood on the shoulders of one of his 
 comrades to be able to reach the ventilation hole, 
 which was high up in the wall. When I answered 
 it was I, he said he could not stand it any more in 
 there hadn't I a cigarette ? I spitted a packet of 
 cigarettes on my bayonet and handed it up to him. 
 
 " Keep up your pecker, old man," I whispered. 
 
246 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " Good Lord, good Lord ..." was the reply, in 
 a pitiful tone which hadn't even a touch of Rader's 
 droll humour left in it. 
 
 The sound of groans and curses reached me con- 
 tinually from the cell ; all spoke very gently for 
 they knew that they would be severely punished if a 
 noise was heard. It is a prison custom for the sentry 
 in the corridor to let the butt of his rifle fall loudly 
 on the floor when he hears the sergeant coming. 
 This is a warning signal. When in their excite- 
 ment they spoke a little louder I could now and 
 then hear through the opening what they were 
 saying. In eloquent French, one of the prisoners, 
 whose accent proclaimed him to be a man of 
 education, was complaining of life in the Legion, 
 and all was still in the cell while the ringing voice 
 spoke in passionate excitement. 
 
 Snatches of what I heard are still fixed in my 
 memory : 
 
 " My God, if I could only die ! My friends, I've 
 always done my duty here. I've marched and 
 marched and marched for four long years. For four 
 /ears I've borne burdens, exposed to wind and 
 weather, and have tired my strength. Four long 
 years ! Yes, I've lost my tie, oh, la la, a thin blue rag 
 worth a couple of centimes and was marched off to 
 prison ! I'd stolen the tie, I'd sold it who believes the 
 word of a legionnaire ! Mea culpa, my friends ! " 
 
 " Mea maxima culpa ! " repeated the speaker 
 quietly. " 'Tis true one has never been much use 
 and has made a monstrous thing of one's life you 
 and I and all of us ! And why not ? That's all 
 
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS 247 
 
 past and done with now. All the same I'm 
 ashamed of the country in which the Foreign 
 Legion can exist. I'm a Frenchman. But I say : 
 Damn the Legion, damn the land of the Legion. . . ." 
 
 And over all there hung the pestilential vapours 
 in the tiny room with the crowded humanity 
 within. 
 
 When I was relieved at midnight the sergeant 
 asked : " Anything unusual ? " 
 
 " No, nothing special," I answered. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SOME TYPES OF VICE 
 
 A variety of human vices : The red wine of Algeria : 
 Shum-Shum : If there were no wine 
 
 IT was always a marvel to me that neither cards 
 nor dice played the slightest part in the life of the 
 Legion, in sharp contrast with the important part 
 they take in the life of the English Tommy, and 
 especially of the American soldier, who is an 
 incorrigible gambler. On a little station in Texas 
 a detachment of sly old regulars in the course of the 
 single night that they were quartered there cleaned 
 out all the cowboys of the neighbourhood. I was 
 one of the victims. But that's another story. . . . 
 Anyhow, the Legion is free from the vice of 
 gambling. This is perhaps hardly to be wondered 
 at; five centimes wages. The possibility of 
 winning or losing five centimes is hardly worth a 
 throw of the dice. 
 
 In its place all the vices of almost every nation 
 in the world can be found in the Foreign Legion. 
 This is not saying too much ; I've looked on. 
 
 Vicious influences are, however, much stronger in 
 Indo- China and in French Tonquin, where the 
 garrisons of the various stations are all drawn from 
 
 248 
 
SOME TYPES OF VICE 249 
 
 the Legion. Veterans like Smith used to tell me 
 things about the life in Tonquin that almost made 
 my hair stand on end. In the inland districts the 
 stations are quite small, and a few legionnaires have 
 to look after a large number of natives. The entire 
 system of justice on such a station, including the 
 power of life and death, lies in the hands of a couple 
 of young officers and a few sergeants and corporals. 
 Surrounded by all possible human vices in their 
 very worst forms, to whose influence the deadly 
 monotony inevitable on one of these stations is 
 added, the men live exposed to constant danger 
 occasioned both by the intrigues among the natives 
 and the murderous climate. The one seeks relief 
 in spirits, the other swears by opium. The fact 
 that opium-smoking plays an important part in the 
 life of the French Navy and among the French 
 Army officers in the Colonies has been made public 
 often enough already : every veteran in the Legion 
 knows well enough that in Toulon and Marseilles 
 there are countless opium dens which depend solely 
 on the custom of French officers. These opium 
 dens were thoroughly discussed in the French 
 press during the trial of the midshipman Ullmo. 
 
 The habit of opium-smoking has, in nearly all 
 cases, been acquired in Indo-China. Spirits, opium, 
 and loneliness form the fruitful soil in which the 
 Legion's vice takes root. In solitary cases even 
 the officers come under its influence. When this 
 happens the results are sometimes very terrible. . . . 
 
 Among the garrisons of Indo-China the most 
 notorious used to be those of Sui-can and Bac-le. 
 
250 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 A certain Lieutenant Duchesne, who was later 
 killed in battle, many say by his own men, and the 
 fact that the bullet hit him in the back goes to 
 prove the truth of this statement, has made his 
 name immortal in the Legion in this connection. 
 Though he has been dead several years, one still 
 hears of his cruelty. His legionnaires were all 
 forced to submit themselves to his vicious freaks, 
 resistance being punished with the penal section, 
 which is ten times worse in Tonquin than those in 
 Algeria. The obedient, however, were promoted. 
 
 Even to-day the same sort of thing can be found 
 here and there in Indo-China. There are always 
 stories like this to be heard in the Legion, adjutants 
 and sous-officiers being freely named who are said 
 to owe their promotion to the vicious preference 
 of some officer or other. A good deal is perhaps 
 spiteful gossip, but the stories are so frequent, and 
 the details given are so minute, that there must be 
 a certain amount of truth in them. 
 
 In addition to these outside influences, a further 
 cause of depravity is the involuntary celibacy to 
 which the legionnaire is subjected. And this 
 celibacy has its origin in a financial consideration : 
 the five centimes per day. 
 
 ... One always comes back again to the same 
 point from which one started. 
 
 Whoever really knows the Foreign Legion, who- 
 ever takes the trouble to probe the depths of its 
 misery and sin, of its brutality and vice, always 
 comes back, like a man walking in a circle, to the 
 same source of all its ills : the pitiful wage that's not 
 
 
SOME TYPES OF VICE 251 
 
 worth calling a wage which this business enterprise 
 pays : this infamous business enterprise that a 
 chivalrous nation has so long tolerated and tolerates 
 
 still. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 All human vices are to be found in the Legion. 
 And first among the minor ones comes drunken- 
 ness. This takes the first place, occurring most 
 frequently and being the most characteristic and 
 easily indulged, in a country where the price of a 
 litre of heavy wine varies between ten and twenty 
 centimes. 
 
 Das 1st ja eben das Malheur : 
 Wer Sorgen hat, trinkt auch Likor. 
 
 " The man who has troubles, drinks " Algerian 
 wine, or in Indo-China a horrible spirit, which is 
 distilled, I believe, from rice and which rejoices in 
 the name of " Shum-Shum," and has the advantage 
 of an uncommonly high percentage of alcohol. It 
 has only one drawback, and that is its infernal 
 smell, which delicate European noses cannot stand. 
 The legionnaire, however, drinks it : while drinking 
 he holds his nose, since he hardly values its aroma 
 as he does its alcohol. I have often heard old 
 legionnaires singing the praises of Shum-Shum. 
 One could get accustomed to its smell, they said, 
 and it made one very, very drunk. 
 
 The droll verses of the old German humourist, 
 Wilhelm Busch, with their subtle point, might have 
 been written for the Legion. How they drank in 
 the canteen of the Foreign Legion in Sidi-bel- 
 
252 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 Abbes. The litre a litre of wine took the place 
 of the current coinage. Thus it was nothing 
 unusual for a legionnaire, when asked to wash for 
 a comrade well endowed with this world's goods, 
 to raise one finger : that meant, of course, a 
 litre. 
 
 " If we hadn't wine. ..." I shall never forget 
 Smith's pet expression. 
 
 There are no statistics on this point. I am, 
 however, quite certain that a good half of the 
 miserable wages paid to the Foreign Legion are 
 spent in purchasing the red wine of Algiers. In 
 addition to this, nine-tenths, nay ninety-nine- 
 hundredths of the notes and postal orders which 
 the legionnaires are continuously sent by anxious 
 parents and relations in Europe go to swell the 
 coffers of Madame la Cantiniere. 
 
 This is in no sense an accusation. When one 
 considers the life of the soldier of the Legion with 
 understanding, one recognises that no one in the 
 world has more cares than he, no one a better right 
 to his few hours of oblivion. Yes, the African 
 legionnaire has a hard life, and drunkenness in his 
 case is really almost excusable. I only want to 
 show what a prominent role the red wine of 
 Algeria does play in the life of the Legion. It is, 
 it is true, the most general vice, but it is the only 
 means of obtaining a few moments of bliss, and the 
 sole source of pleasure. 
 
 Wine is the cause of a great many punishments. 
 Drunkenness is a " sale offense," to use the soldier's 
 expression, a dishonourable offence that is severely 
 
 
SOME TYPES OF VICE 253 
 
 punished, and which continually furnishes the penal 
 section with new material. 
 
 As an instance of this I will give you the story 
 of a man in my company, a Belgian named Las- 
 celles. At regular intervals he got a postal order 
 for a small sum sent him from some relative in 
 Europe. On receiving his money, he vanished as 
 soon as he came off duty and did not come back to 
 the barracks again for at least twenty-four hours. 
 As long as his coppers lasted, he used to go from 
 wine-shop to wine-shop and empty bottle after 
 bottle. On his return he would be immediately 
 locked up for overstaying his leave of absence ; 
 generally, however, to celebrate the event he had 
 made a great disturbance, and committed a series 
 of more or less grave offences, for each of which he 
 was punished singly. Every month the time he 
 spent in prison grew longer and longer, beginning 
 with a trifling eight days and increasing to a 
 month's solitary confinement. In between whiles, 
 Lascelles was a capital soldier, who did his work 
 willingly enough. When, however, his name was 
 read out at roll-call a postal order for Lascelles 
 one could be sure that a day later would find him in 
 prison once more. In a few months he had worked 
 his way up the regimental scale of punishments, and 
 then came the inevitable end and he was sent off to 
 the penal section. 
 
 Lascelles' misfortunes were at any rate his own 
 fault. It often happens, however, that spiteful 
 sergeants in the Legion take advantage of a man's 
 love of drink to work his ruin. 
 
254 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 A sergeant has a spite against a man and waits 
 patiently for the day when he comes into the barracks 
 in a state of intoxication. He then follows him to 
 his quarters and gives him some order or other. 
 The man feels how needless and spiteful this is, 
 and, being hardly in a condition to think of danger, 
 answers with a curse. This is just what is wanted. 
 Even when the man is sober enough to do what he 
 has been ordered, he is severely punished for his 
 curse. Should he continue to be " insubordinate " 
 he comes before the court-martial. 
 
 This is a very old trick in the Legion, and only 
 recruits or very old legionnaires under the influence 
 of drink and suffering at the same time from the 
 cafard are caught by it. The average legionnaire 
 is careful, and, drunk or sober, obeys every order 
 no matter how furious he may be. " Nix Zephyrs 
 pour moi," he says. 
 
 " Ah yes, there is another side to the proverb, 
 " If there were no wine. 
 
 Every vice was represented there. The most 
 brutal egotism and boundless avarice ruled that 
 hard life. One grudged one's comrade a crust of 
 bread, a sip of wine, or a piece of meat. The man 
 who had a few shillings sent him was an object of 
 hate and envy. 
 
 Intrigue slander lying theft the Legion 
 brings all the bad points in a man's character to 
 full development. 
 
 Whose fault is it ? 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MY ESCAPE 
 
 In the Arab prison : The letter : Days of suffering : 
 Flight ! : The greedy " Credit Lyonnais " : Haggling 
 in the Ghetto : The palm grove as a dressing-room : 
 On the railway track : Arab policemen : Horrible 
 minutes : Travelling to Oran : Small preparations : On 
 the steamer St. Augustine : Marseilles- Ventimiglia : 
 Free 
 
 -\ i 
 
 THE days came and the days went, and with every 
 day I understood more what it meant to be a 
 legionnaire in Africa. 
 
 The knowledge so gained was not pleasant. 
 
 One day I was on guard in the Arab prison of 
 Sidi-bel- Abbes, an ugly, gloomy building in the 
 middle of the town. An old retired sergeant of 
 the Legion was overseer of the Arab prison, and 
 with the help of two gendarmes kept the Arab 
 prisoners in strictest order. The prison was always 
 crowded with native sinners, for the petty thefts in 
 the market-place and the constant fights in the 
 negro quarter kept the cells of that grey building 
 near the Place Sadi Carnot always full. The native 
 prisoners had often made trouble, and mutinies had 
 been quite frequent. The last outbreak had been 
 very serious, so since that time the Legion had 
 
 255 
 
256 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 sent a guard every day to the Arab prison con- 
 sisting of a corporal and six men. 
 
 My rifle with fixed bayonet over my shoulder, I 
 kept pacing slowly on the top of the broad wall 
 surrounding the prison in an enormous square. The 
 sun burned down pitilessly. In the tiny courtyard 
 small groups of Arab prisoners cowered in the 
 sulky silence of inactivity. All talking was for- 
 bidden in the prison. The overseer's sharp words 
 of command now and then, and the ring of my 
 steps on the stones of the wall, sounded into the 
 silence. Mechanically I followed the path pre- 
 scribed for " sentry-go," marching round and round 
 the prison square. 
 
 Erom the high wall I had a view of all Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes. The town was like a city of the dead in 
 this frightful heat. The blinds in all the houses 
 were pulled down and there was not a soul to be 
 seen in the streets. In the hot, trembling air the 
 faint outlines of the mountains of Thessala glit- 
 tered in the far distance. There was not a breath 
 of wind. 
 
 Two legionnaires in white fatigue uniforms 
 turned into the street leading to the prison. They 
 were men from our company, bringing us our 
 evening soup. They called out something to 
 me that I could not understand and I acknow- 
 ledged it with an indifferent nod. Then they 
 knocked at the gate of the prison and had to wait 
 an age till the overseer opened it with his jingling 
 bunch of keys and they could carry their soup-pail 
 into the guard-room. Some minutes later one of 
 
MY ESCAPE 257 
 
 them came into the yard by the guard-room and 
 beckoned to me to come nearer to him. As I 
 approached, I saw that he held a white something 
 in his hand. 
 
 " Eh, une lettre pour toi ! " he cried. " Here's a 
 letter for you." 
 
 Very much annoyed I called down to him to 
 hurry up and get out of this. It was too hot for 
 practical jokes. I never got letters. . . . 
 
 " But here is one," said the man. " Your name, 
 your company, your number everything all right ! 
 La la I'm off I'll give your letter to the cor- 
 poral. May Allah better your bad temper 1 
 Sapristi, how hot it is ! " 
 
 I had to wait half an hour until I was relieved. 
 Those were terrible minutes. A letter a letter 
 for me? It seemed almost impossible. There 
 was nobody in the world who could or should know 
 where I was or what I was doing. The blood rose in 
 hot waves to my head and all at once I recognised 
 that there was only one human being who could 
 have written to me that her love was not dead. 
 
 Slowly the seconds, the minutes went by. I 
 waited in indescribable suspense. The sun was 
 sinking. The houses of Sidi-bel- Abbes were bathed 
 in its ruddy glow. Below me in the prison yard 
 I heard a noisy chattering in guttural Arabic. 
 The prisoners were being given their food and 
 were then allowed to speak. The poor devils' 
 chatter seemed to pierce my brain ; that buzzing 
 noise down below hurt me, until I could not stand 
 it any longer. 
 
 B 
 
258 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " Be quiet there ! " I cried. 
 
 There was immediate silence. A gendarme 
 called out to me that I had made a mistake and 
 that talking was allowed. " Pas defendu de 
 parler," he said to the prisoners, and the Arabs 
 looked up at me with angry eyes. 
 
 And I had to go on waiting, waiting. . . . 
 
 This awful suspense seemed to have lasted for 
 hours when the corporal at last came to relieve 
 me. The conventionality of passing orders and 
 sentry instructions was being gone through ; we 
 were on service and it was contrary to all discipline 
 but I could not w r ait any longer. 
 
 " You've a letter for me, corporal ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes, there is a letter for you," he answered. 
 " You can have it as soon as 1 have done relieving 
 the sentries. En avant marche ! " 
 
 A new period of anxious waiting and torturing 
 expectation. . . . At last the corporal of the guard 
 came back and put his hand in his pocket : 
 
 " Voila ! " 
 
 On the white envelope I saw the characters of 
 the handwriting I knew so well. I went out into 
 the square which was now empty, as the prisoners 
 had been locked up in their cells again. I read 
 and read again and again. . . . 
 
 Love stretched out its hand to the lost soldier 
 of the Legion and spoke to him of happiness to 
 come. Long years hence when the legionnaire 
 would be no longer a legionnaire. The letter's 
 many pages bore traces of tears. I wanted to tear 
 off my uniform, that brand of slavery condemning 
 
MY ESCAPE 259 
 
 me to inactivity. Within me all was in a whirl. 
 In the darkness of the ugly court I dreamed dreams 
 of the past and hopes of the future so hopelessly 
 far off. During the four hours from watch to 
 watch I sat motionless in the prison-yard. 
 
 In these few hours there came to me that energy 
 which meant the beginning of a new life. Then 
 it was my turn for sentry duty again. And then 
 I sat down at the small table in the guard-room 
 while the corporal and the other men slept, and 
 wrote an endless letter with the corporal's pencil 
 on the back of report forms. Page upon 
 page. . . . 
 
 The next day a letter from my mother came ; 
 a letter that neither asked questions nor held 
 reproaches. It only spoke of love and anxiety for 
 me. This letter solved the riddle of how my 
 whereabouts had been discovered. After long 
 months of waiting and wondering the people who 
 loved me got the idea that I might be in the 
 Foreign Legion, since the last letter they received 
 from me had been dated from the French fortress, 
 Belfort. My mother wrote to the general in com- 
 mand of the fortress and to the French Secretary 
 of War. The answer was long delayed, but at 
 last the news came that I had joined the Foreign 
 Legion at Sidi-bel- Abbes that I was the legion- 
 naire number 17889 ! 
 
 With that hour in the Arab prison which brought 
 me the first letter, the days of suffering began. I 
 performed my duty and did my work like a 
 machine, thinking of nothing but the letters which 
 
260 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 the next post would bring me. I hardly spoke a 
 word to anybody in those times. When I was off 
 duty I went for long walks in the still paths by 
 the fortifications in order to be alone. Finally 
 only one idea governed my thoughts : Flight ! 
 
 Week after week I received letters every day, 
 begging and beseeching me to have patience. I 
 was to remember that all hopes for the future would 
 be shattered if I was caught deserting. Better to 
 wait for years than to risk everything. But 1 
 could not wait. And one day there came a regis- 
 tered letter from my mother. When I opened it, 
 I held banknotes for a large sum of money in my 
 hand. . . . 
 
 This meant freedom ! I crossed the court of the 
 barracks as one in a dream. This money in my 
 pocket meant new life for me my mother had for 
 the second time given me life. I knew what a 
 sacrifice this money meant; how hard it must 
 have been for my mother with her tiny widow's 
 pension to scrape together such a sum of money 
 for me. And all at once a wave of happiness over- 
 came me I should be free ! I should be able 
 to thank those loving ones who were helping 
 me. . . . 
 
 ***** 
 
 I got that letter at five o'clock in the afternoon. 
 I was just off duty and had come back to the 
 barracks, having been pulling out weeds in the 
 Legion's cemetery. That should be my last bit of 
 work as legionnaire. 
 
 
MY ESCAPE 261 
 
 Not a single hour I intended to wait. There 
 was no more rest for me in the land of Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes. In our quarters my comrades were sitting 
 at supper as I came back from the regimental post- 
 bureau, and Smith was much surprised at my 
 eating nothing, and at my putting on at once my 
 extra uniform. He looked suspiciously at me, as 
 if he had an idea that I had something out of the 
 way on my mind. I would have been only too 
 glad to say a last good-bye to the old bugler 
 who had been a true friend to me in his rough way, 
 but he was sitting at table with the rest of the 
 men. When I had finished dressing and had 
 quietly taken my letters and the few trifles I 
 wanted to take with me out of my knapsack, 
 Smith came up and lay down on his bed as usual 
 after supper. 
 
 " Good-bye, old man," I whispered. " You've 
 been a good fellow." 
 
 Smith did not move. Only his eyes lighted 
 up. ... 
 
 " Got money ? " he asked gently. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then it's all right. Good-bye, sonny good- 
 bye!" 
 
 As I went out the other men were sitting on the 
 benches doing the various odd jobs which were 
 part of life in the Legion. They rubbed and 
 polished polished and rubbed. At that time they 
 were hardly more to me than a passer-by in the 
 street. Now, I confess, the face of every one of 
 them is indelibly burnt into my brain. 
 
262 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 I was to be subjected to a final annoyance. 
 
 The sergeant of the guard stopped me at the 
 gate of the barracks, because in my excitement I 
 had buttoned up my overcoat on the wrong side. 
 He said he had a good mind to turn me back for 
 my carelessness. 
 
 " Nom de Dieu ! you pig, don't you know that 
 this month the overcoats are buttoned on the right 
 side?" 
 
 But he let me go. Through the crowd of legion- 
 naires I hurried down the promenade. The first 
 place I had to go to was the " Credit Lyonnais," 
 the famous French bank which had a branch in 
 Sidi-bel- Abbes near the Place Sadi Carnot. The 
 greater part of my money consisted of Belgian 
 banknotes, which naturally were not in circulation 
 in Algeria, and I thought I should be able to have 
 them changed at the bank more quickly and 
 cheaply than anywhere else. There I made a 
 mistake. The clerk at the counter explained in a 
 roundabout way that Belgian banknotes were of 
 no use to them, and that it would cost a lot of 
 money to send them to Paris. He was only greedy, 
 of course (everybody in Sidi-bel-Abbes is), and 
 trying to get an especially high commission out of 
 me. Perhaps he thought that a legionnaire should 
 be too pleased at having so much money to bother 
 about a few francs more or less. There he was in 
 error. I replied I should complain to the colonel 
 of my regiment that the only bank in Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes tried to overcharge a simple soldier. Where- 
 upon this greedy clerk of a world-famous bank 
 
MY ESCAPE 263 
 
 grumblingly took my notes and gave me French 
 money for them. 
 
 Through the brightly illuminated main streets, 
 saluting officers right and left, I hurried to the 
 Ghetto. In the very first alley of the Ghetto 1 
 met an old fellow who looked promising. I tapped 
 him on the shoulder. 
 
 "Eh! Civilian clothes ?" 
 
 The Jew raised his forefinger warningly. 
 
 " Can't sell to legionnaires." 
 
 I turned on my heels and went slowly on. But 
 he was after me already. 
 
 " How much ? " 
 
 " Twenty francs." 
 
 "Fifty!" 
 
 "Thirty." 
 
 " Forty-five ! " 
 
 " Look here," I said. (The conversation was 
 held in bad Algerian French, of course.) " I'll give 
 you forty francs, and that settles it. But I've got 
 to have those clothes quick." 
 
 The Jew looked at me dubiously, and held out 
 the palms of his hands. One could not be mis- 
 taken about the gesture : he had his doubts about 
 my solvency. So I reassured the old man by 
 showing him a few gold pieces. Now the son of 
 Israel was quite satisfied, and led me a few steps 
 farther on into a house. A tiny little lamp was 
 smoking in a foul-smelling room. 
 
 " Sarah 1 " called out my companion. 
 
 An old woman came hobbling out of a neigh- 
 bouring room, and when she heard what was wanted 
 
264 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 went off and fetched a heap of clothes. Amongst 
 them there was a suit which looked fairly respect- 
 able. It fitted me pretty well, and in the natural 
 order of things we began haggling again. Fifty 
 francs changed hands. 
 
 Then I gave the Ghetto man another gold piece. 
 
 " Now hurry up and get me a hat somewhere, a 
 pair of boots, a collar and a tie." 
 
 But here the fat old woman with her shrill voice 
 began to make difficulties. I was bringing mis- 
 fortune on them. It was after business hours any- 
 way. I must not stay in the house any longer- 
 it was far too dangerous. " Allez vous en allez 
 vous en ! " 
 
 The old lady began to get on my nerves, and I 
 went willingly enough. At the corner 1 waited 
 for the old Jew. In ten minutes he came back, 
 and said that he could for twenty francs get me a 
 really good outfit, boots, an extra collar, a good hat 
 and a pair of gloves ; for an extra twenty he could 
 procure an excellent revolver. He got the money, 
 and after a short time came back with two 
 bundles. 
 
 At the end of the next street there was the high 
 wall of the fortifications. From the inside I could 
 climb over easily enough. The drop to the ground 
 on the other side was a pretty big one, but I landed 
 unhurt in the sand, in the middle of a palm grove. 
 From the open windows of a villa close to the 
 grove a flood of light streamed, and I could hear 
 the merry sounds of a waltz. I could see the 
 couples dancing. Many officers were amongst 
 
MY ESCAPE 265 
 
 them. But there was no danger of being seen ; it 
 was pitch dark among the palms. In feverish 
 haste I tore off my uniform and put on the civilian 
 clothes. They fitted me well. It was quite a 
 strange feeling fastening a collar and tie once 
 more. . . . 
 
 And when I had changed I nailed uniform and 
 overcoat, and boots and belt, and everything to a 
 palm with the bayonet, wondering who would find 
 them in the morning ! 
 
 I drew on my gloves and my toilet was complete. 
 In the villa the band (it was the Legion's band too) 
 was playing a German waltz : " Das ist das siisse 
 Madel. . . ." 
 
 With a feeling very much akin to fright 1 
 walked to the nearest gate in the fortification walls. 
 The soldiers on guard there, however, did not take 
 the slightest notice of me. This gave me more 
 confidence. Slowly and unostentatiously I crossed 
 the promenade as though I were merely a re- 
 spectable citizen out for a stroll. Legionnaires 
 were promenading everywhere. More than once I 
 had to turn and make a detour to avoid meeting 
 non-commissioned officers of my own company. 
 It was an exciting walk. At last I had passed 
 through the main streets and came to a suburban 
 road leading straight to the railway station. The 
 little station was quite deserted. I looked carefully 
 about me to see whether anybody was watching me, 
 and then climbed down the steep embankment to 
 the railroad tracks, leading straight to the north to 
 Oran. 
 
266 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 In the meantime it had become quite dark. 
 From afar the lights of the station and of the 
 switch-signals were shining ; the lines themselves 
 lay hidden in pitch-darkness. I began to run. At 
 first I kept stumbling over the sharp stones 
 between the rails and once I fell at full length. 
 Soon, however, I got the hang of the thing, 
 springing from sleeper to sleeper. I ran as hard as 
 I could. A quarter of an hour, half an hour. 
 Then I had to stop, coughing and out of breath. 
 It was beginning to drizzle. The landscape was 
 cloaked in inky darkness and there was only a faint 
 gleam of light on the horizon far behind me to show 
 where Sidi-bel- Abbes lay. . . . As far as I could tell I 
 must have covered about five kilometres. My feet 
 were paining me. I drew off one of my boots and 
 found that there were long rows of nails sticking 
 up inside and that the soles were damp with blood. 
 I tore up my handkerchief and made a pad from 
 the rags to cover the nails. But the horrible little 
 monsters bored through even this. Anyhow, it 
 was far better than before. I examined the 
 revolver in my pocket and it was a pleasant 
 surprise to find that it was a capital weapon, a 
 Browning pistol. The old Jew, who certainly knew 
 nothing about weapons, had, with the revolver, 
 atoned for his sins in the matter of boots ! 
 
 Once more I started forward. My feet had to 
 get accustomed to the nails whether they liked it 
 or not. From now on I kept up an alternate double 
 and walk, husbanding my strength as I had learnt 
 to do in the Legion, running five minutes at the 
 
MY ESCAPE 267 
 
 double and then walking five minutes, always 
 following the railway's bee-line for the north. 
 Once I heard the roar of a train behind me and lay 
 down flat in the sand by the rails. Thus hour 
 after hour went by. I had already passed three 
 stations, which merely consisted of a few houses 
 which lay there deserted in the darkness. As I passed 
 a lonely signal-house a dog began to bark and I 
 started off in deadly terror, running like a madman 
 till I had left the beast tearing at his chain far 
 behind me. How thankful I was for the silence 
 and darkness. ... I breathed with difficulty, I had 
 been running so hard. My clothes were soaked 
 with sweat, and when I stopped for a moment to 
 rest, an icy shiver passed over my whole body. 
 But I pulled myself together, for I wanted to reach 
 a medium- sized station, where it would not be so 
 noticeable when I took a ticket for Oran. 
 
 The rain soon stopped again. And now the 
 moon began to shine fitfully through the gaps in 
 the clouds, even this faint light being much more 
 than I cared about. A terrible fear of being seen 
 by a police patrol came over me. All at once the 
 country became hilly. On either side of the rails 
 there lay mighty rocks, great jagged boulders of 
 sandstone, and I rejoiced in the shelter they gave 
 me. I had been running for some minutes between 
 the rocks when I heard a strange noise. At first I 
 thought it was another train. But as the sound 
 grew nearer and grew clearer I knew what it was : 
 galloping horses ! 
 
 Through a gap in the rocks I could see the fine 
 
268 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 white line which marked the road. It was scarcely 
 a hundred yards away from the railway. On this 
 road a patrol was coming along at a gallop. . . . 
 
 Had the police already seen me? Just before, 
 where the country was flat, my silhouette must 
 have stood out sharply defined against the sky in 
 the moonlight. 
 
 In a paroxysm of fear I crawled in between two 
 rocks and held my breath to listen. The horses 
 drew nearer and nearer, the beat of their hoofs on 
 the roadway ringing out loud and clear. Peeping 
 out of my hiding-place I could see the dark forms 
 of horses and their riders. Now they were up with 
 me. I heard a sharp exclamation in Arabic. The 
 three men pulled up their horses and came to a halt. 
 
 I pulled out my pistol. The barrel shone in the 
 moonlight. I hastily covered up the weapon with 
 my coat, for fear it should betray my hiding-place. 
 Then I carefully cocked the pistol and felt whether 
 the cartridge-frame was in order. A feeling of icy 
 calmness came upon me. I made up my mind not 
 to stir from my hiding-place and not to fire until 
 the gendarmes were quite close to me in their 
 search. I considered the matter carefully. Two full 
 cartridge- frames I took in my left hand, ready to 
 refill the chamber. My idea was to empty the 
 magazine in quick shooting in order to get in as 
 many shots as possible before they recovered from 
 their surprise. 
 
 Down below some one lit a match. It burned 
 for a moment only. I heard one of the gendarmes 
 laugh. Then the three men galloped forward again. 
 
MY ESCAPE 269 
 
 One of them must have asked his comrades for a 
 match. . . . 
 
 The noise of the galloping horses was soon lost in 
 the distance, but for a long time I sat trembling from 
 head to foot between the two rocks. The tears of 
 over- excitement were running down my face as I 
 put up the pistol. I could have yelled for joy that 
 this awful danger was over. When I stood up 
 again, I fell back against the rocks. My trembling 
 knees could not support my body. . . . 
 
 Les Imberts was the name of the station. It 
 was forty-two kilometres distant from Sidi-bel- 
 Abbes ; in seven hours I had covered a distance of 
 about thirty English miles. When at four o'clock 
 in the morning I reached the station and deciphered 
 its name and its distance from Sidi-bel- Abbes in the 
 darkness, there was not a human being to be seen. 
 The stillness of night still lay upon everything. A 
 few hundred yards from the station a number of 
 freight cars stood. I jumped into one of them and 
 studied, lighting one match after another, the 
 Algerian time-table which my careful mother had 
 sent me. The first train to Oran went at a few 
 minutes past five. 
 
 The first thing to be done was to care for my 
 outer man a little. I climbed out of the car again 
 and found, after a long search, a barrel half full of 
 water standing under a shed. Day was just 
 breaking. After a very hurried wash I hid again 
 in one of the cars, brushing my clothes and cleaning 
 
270 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 my boots with my handkerchief. I was very glad 
 of the extra collar which my friend of the Ghetto 
 had purchased. Finally I had a look at myself in 
 my tiny looking-glass. It would do ! Indeed, 
 the effect was not half bad. It would do very 
 well; decently dressed people were scarce in 
 Algeria. . . . 
 
 At five o'clock I started on a roundabout route 
 for the station. A dozen people stood waiting on 
 the platform, amongst them an Arab policeman 
 leaning lazily against the wall. I went straight up 
 to the ticket office. 
 
 " Oran premiere classe ! " 
 
 " Sept-soixante," said the official. " Seven francs 
 and sixty centimes." 
 
 I jumped into the nearest first-class compart- 
 ment, and found to my joy that it was empty. 
 The train started off. During the two hours' 
 journey from Les Imberts to Oran I brought my 
 dress into decent order and smoked innumerable 
 cigarettes to drive away my sleepiness. At the 
 barrier in Oran a sergeant of Zouaves and a 
 corporal of the Legion were watching for deserters, 
 but they didn't take the slightest notice of me. 
 
 Until ten o'clock I wandered about the town. 
 Then I went to the office of the French Mediter- 
 ranean line and took a second-class ticket for 
 Marseilles. The passenger boat St. Augmtine was 
 due to start at five in the afternoon. 
 
 All at once I became very sleepy. I could hardly 
 keep my eyes open, but I had not the courage to 
 go to an hotel and rest there for a few hours. So 
 
MY ESCAPE 271 
 
 I went into a restaurant and enjoyed a long- 
 drawn-out French dinner and a bottle of heavy 
 Burgundy. Suddenly I remembered that it would 
 look suspicious if I started on a sea voyage with- 
 out any luggage. For a few francs I procured a 
 big valise whose paste-board sides looked really " the 
 same as leather," and bought newspapers at every 
 corner to stuff my " luggage " with. 
 
 At a few minutes to five I went on board the 
 steamer. With a cigarette between my lips and a 
 bundle of newspapers under my arm I walked up 
 and down the deck, read Le Eire, and did all 1 
 could to assume a careless mien. In reality I was 
 in a very serious situation. The question was : 
 Had a telegram from the regiment with my 
 description reached Oran already or not ? 
 
 The half-hour struck, but the St. Augustine 
 was still in dock. Police came and went. All at 
 once I felt myself go pale as death ; a patrol of four 
 Zouave sergeants was coming up the gangway. 
 They went over the whole ship, looking carefully 
 about them. Then they interchanged a few words 
 with the captain and went on again. . . . 
 
 I was just beginning to breathe again, when a 
 gendarme came up to me and asked, saluting 
 courteously : 
 
 " Monsieur is a Frenchman ? " 
 
 " Non, monsieur, an Englishman," I answered 
 quietly, and smiled at the gendarme in spite of the 
 icy fear gripping at my heart. 
 
 If he should chance on the idea of asking for my 
 papers I was lost ! 
 
272 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 " Your name, please ? " 
 
 " Eugene Sanders." 
 
 " Profession ? " 
 
 " Engineer from Tlemcen on the way to 
 Nice." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 . . . After a few minutes the ship's bell rang 
 out, the gangways were pulled in, and the screw 
 began to revolve. I went into my cabin and went 
 to sleep. During the whole of the sea voyage 1 
 had not a single thought, not a single hope, not a 
 single fear 1 merely slept. 
 
 As the St. Augustine ran into harbour in Mar- 
 seilles, a new difficulty presented itself. What 
 would the custom-house say to my valise filled with 
 paper? Luggage of this sort would have made 
 anybody suspicious. 
 
 Chance came to my aid. A number of boats 
 crowded around the ship, and several boatmen 
 climbed on board to offer their services as porters, 
 and so on. I went up to one of them and told him 
 that I wanted to be put on shore as quickly as 
 possible. Could he do it ? 
 
 " For five francs," the fellow said. 
 
 " All right. Row me over." 
 
 My satchel I left on board to avoid the customs 
 inspection. 
 
 A gangway had already been let down from the 
 side of the steamer, and I stepped down into the 
 boat with my boatman. Ten minutes later I stood 
 on the "quai" in Marseilles. In another five 
 minutes I had found a cab and was on my way to 
 
MY ESCAPE 273 
 
 the station. Half an hour later I was seated in a 
 compartment of an express train for the Riviera. 
 
 A Riviera journey in the darkness. . . . Toulon 
 flew past Cannes. In Nice I could hear even in 
 the railway-train the noise of the carnival which 
 was nearing its end the platform was covered 
 with confetti. We reached Monaco Monte Carlo, 
 with its brilliantly illuminated casino. 
 
 At last we reached Ventimiglia : the first Italian 
 station ! 
 
 It was one o'clock in the morning. I stormed 
 into the telegraph-office and despatched two tele- 
 grams to my two dearest. . . . 
 
 Free free again ! 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 J'ACCUSE 
 
 Two years after : Shadows of the past : My vision : 
 Public opinion and the Foreign Legion : The political 
 aspect of the Foreign Legion : The moralist's point of 
 view : The " Legion question" in a nutshell : A question 
 the civilised world should have answered long ago : 
 Quousque tandem . . . ? 
 
 Two years have passed. 
 
 They were years of fighting and years of toil. 
 Years in which I burnt much midnight oil, and in 
 which every tiny success meant worlds to me. My 
 personal attitude towards the Foreign Legion was a 
 rather peculiar one at first. For several months 
 I forced myself never even to think of the time 
 when I was in the Legion. Those times should 
 merely be to me a dim shadow of the past. 
 
 I looked upon them as an ugly page that I 
 should only too gladly have torn out of the book of 
 my life : since, however, I could not rid myself of 
 them in this way I avoided ever opening the book 
 at this page. . . . But the past which we should like 
 to forget has an unpleasant way of forcing itself 
 upon us, unbidden and against our will. 
 
 Often as I lay back in my arm-chair in an idle 
 quarter of an hour, scenes from my life in the 
 
 274 
 
J'ACCUSE 275 
 
 Legion mingled dimly with the blue smoke of my 
 cigarette. An endless procession of legionnaires 
 would pass before me, a procession of men loaded 
 like beasts of burden, their backs bent almost 
 double, panting and gasping as they struggled 
 forward in the sand : I could see their staring eyes, 
 their rounded backs. I felt the tortures they were 
 undergoing, how they struggled forward till their 
 last ounce 9 of strength was spent : even their groans 
 were audible to me. Every one of these men 
 seemed to look at me with hatred. You sit there 
 in your arm-chair ? In an atmosphere of culture ? 
 Amongst beautiful things of art ? You belong to 
 us ! Off to your place, legionnaire, on the wing of 
 the first row of fours in the eleventh company. 
 Quick march, legionnaire, or die ! When I spent 
 a golden coin on some amusement I seemed to see 
 the hands of the legionnaires, trembling claw-like 
 hands, grasping for my money and trying to rend 
 it from me. Gold ! Wealth unheard of after the 
 miserable coppers of the Legion ! Give it to us, 
 said those fingers, give it to us ! Have you for- 
 gotten our five centimes, legionnaire ? 
 
 My imagination worried me. 
 
 I gave a part of the story of my life price, and 
 after much hesitation wrote this book. I have only 
 described the ordinary routine of life in the regiment 
 of foreigners as I myself experienced it. It is 
 merely a tiny part of what every legionnaire 
 undergoes. 
 
 I wanted to show the legionnaire how he lives, 
 and how he must work. I did not dream of being 
 
276 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 able to warn foolish young fellows about the Legion. 
 It is impossible to warn a fool. But I thought, 
 and think still, that a true and exact description of 
 the French Foreign Legion would perhaps help to 
 put an end to an institution which is a disgrace to 
 civilised humanity, and which should be to the 
 civilised nations of to-day as unintelligible as the 
 slave trade. . . . And above all I wanted to get 
 rid of those visions which troubled me. 
 
 In considering the Foreign Legion one must 
 above all be careful not to go to work with common- 
 places, nor to start from general axioms. The idea 
 is so prevalent that the soldiers of the Foreign 
 Legion are lost and ruined men, even criminals 
 morally and practically useless at best. A good- 
 for-nothing lot of fellows who are no loss to 
 anybody. 
 
 One is apt to dispose of the legionnaire in a few 
 trite remarks. Men of learning write from their 
 arm-chairs to the papers about " the hirelings who 
 have sold themselves into slavery, thus helping to 
 revive the feudal system of the Middle Ages." If, 
 however, the question were more closely inquired 
 into, I am sure that it would be found that these 
 rogues and vagabands are not, in reality, quite so 
 bad. True, I can bring forward no positive proof 
 of this. There are no statistics about the Foreign 
 Legion, and I am in no better position than any 
 other human being to bring forward authentic 
 material. There are not even official figures about 
 the strength of the two regiments. I admit, 
 willingly enough, that a large percentage of the men 
 
J' ACCUSE 277 
 
 in the Foreign Legion really deserve the callous 
 summing up that one is wont to apply to the whole 
 regiment. All that I have seen and heard in 
 Africa, however, has convinced me that the other 
 and greater part of the men in the Foreign Legion 
 are anything but the lost souls one imagines them 
 to be. They come into the Legion as poor 
 workmen. Their story is the sad one of the vaga- 
 bond workman who had to starve on the French 
 high road, because he could not speak the language. 
 It is these men who have always formed the heart 
 of the Foreign Legion. It is the pangs of hunger 
 that drives men into the Foreign Legion French 
 and English, Germans and Italians, Spaniards and 
 Austrians, men of all countries, men of all races. 
 Yes, hunger is a most efficient recruiting sergeant 
 for the Foreign Legion. 
 
 The hungry man who seeks a refuge in the 
 Foreign Legion gets, it is true, his daily bread ; 
 he is, all the same, disgracefully swindled. It cannot 
 be repeated often enough how hard the legionnaire 
 has to work, how miserable his existence is, how he 
 gives his whole strength for a wage that is not 
 worth mentioning. We are so practical in our 
 modern ideas of life ; every workman knows well 
 enough the exact value of his work in the current 
 coin of the realm, and takes advantage of every 
 opportunity of getting a higher wage. And, in an 
 age which is ever improving the standard of living, 
 and which has so absolutely changed the ideas of 
 the poorer classes, how is it possible that a business 
 concern like the Foreign Legion it is really 
 
278 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 nothing but a business concern, a commercial 
 undertaking can always get hundreds and thou- 
 sands of labourer-soldiers, for a wage compared 
 with which the wages of the tiniest village are 
 riches ? 
 
 The results are startling when one compares the 
 Foreign Legion with the world's two other merce- 
 nary armies, those of America and England, both 
 of which countries, by-the-by, take great care to 
 keep up a certain moral standard among their 
 soldiers. These two armies, in sharp contrast to 
 the Foreign Legion, pay their soldiers exceptionally 
 well. The least that an American regular receives 
 is thirteen dollars a month ; the English Tommy 
 gets a shilling a day. And these are soldiers and 
 not workmen. They are mercenaries, like the 
 legionnaire, but at any rate they are well-paid 
 mercenaries. 
 
 The miserable wages, together with the existing 
 conditions of life in the Legion, are enough to con- 
 vince even a Frenchman that the existence of the 
 Foreign Legion is a sin against the very first 
 principles of humanity and has been for eighty 
 years. In the sand of Algeria, in the swamps of 
 Madagascar, in the fever-pested plains of Tonquin, 
 in the valleys of Mexico, there lie these men of 
 every nation, these men who have died in the 
 Foreign Legion, who have sold their lives for their 
 rations and five centimes a day. 
 
 If one leaves the dead in peace and only considers 
 the living, one reaches the same conclusion : rob- 
 bery, and robbery of the destitute at that ! A sin 
 
J'ACCUSE 279 
 
 against every principle of humanity ! Oh, thrice 
 accursed Legion: forcing inexperienced young 
 fellows into its ranks, who would never join did 
 they know what lies before them ; absolutely cal- 
 lous as to the value of human life, forcing its 
 soldiers to conditions of life which must ruin their 
 health for ever ! 
 
 It is not for this alone that the Legion is 
 answerable. It is also answerable for the vices of 
 the Legion, for it is the life in the Legion that 
 has brought the tiny seeds of these vices to full 
 
 bloom. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 About the political aspect of the Foreign Legion 
 there can be no two opinions. 
 
 The Foreign Legion is an antiquated, ridiculously 
 out-of-date survival of the feudal system of the 
 Middle Ages, with all the disadvantages of the 
 mercenary system, but without the romantic halo 
 which in days gone by hung around the soldiers of 
 fortune. 
 
 According to modern ideas, it is absolutely 
 monstrous that one of the most cultured nations 
 of the world should have in its pay a corps com- 
 posed of men of all nationalities, and who are, 
 as is generally acknowledged, very often foreign 
 deserters, who enlist to save themselves from starva- 
 tion. Their colours bear the unsatisfying motto, 
 "Valeur et Discipline." The inscription on the 
 national flag, " Honneur et Patrie " " For Honour 
 and our Country " could hardly be given to these 
 " mixed pickles." But these two words, " Valeur " 
 
280 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 and " Discipline," are pregnant with meaning. Com- 
 parisons with the English and American armies are 
 not only of interest as far as the pay is concerned ; 
 there is in all respects a vast difference between 
 these two armies and the Foreign Legion. Only 
 men of British birth can join the British army. 
 The American army takes foreigners into its ranks, 
 but only those who possess the so-called first 
 papers, i.e., have sworn before a magistrate that 
 they intend to become American citizens after the 
 prescribed five years. The American mercenary is 
 looked upon as an American citizen and has to take 
 the oath of allegiance. The Foreign Legion, on 
 the other hand, knows no oath at all. The printed 
 bit of paper that the recruit for the Foreign Legion 
 signs is merely a contract, a statement of the 
 conditions of service. This contract is the only 
 chain which fetters the legionnaire to the Legion 
 a contract which, according to every one of our 
 modern ideas of international law, is null and 
 void. To-day, in international law, contracts op- 
 posed to public morality are much talked about, 
 and what could be more immoral in every 
 sense of the word than this contract that the 
 French Republic makes with its recruits, this con- 
 tract in which what is got out of a man and what 
 he is paid stand in such an unsatisfying relation 
 to each other. 
 
 As I have said before, there can be no two 
 opinions about the Foreign Legion. Every one 
 with sound ideas of political economy must agree 
 that it is an unheard-of condition of affairs when 
 
J'ACCUSE 281 
 
 a nation is allowed to receive the deserters and 
 criminals I speak now of that other half of the 
 Foreign Legion of the States surrounding it, 
 indeed from all the States in the world, with open 
 arms, and to make use of them on principle for 
 a special military organisation. One cannot speak 
 too strongly about this transaction, which is a 
 piece of military blackguardism with something 
 more than despicable about it. And not only the 
 feudalism of the Middle Ages survives in the Foreign 
 Legion but also the morals of those times, when 
 a poor devil enlisted because he did not know of 
 anything better to do with his life : of those times 
 when a deserter was valued because he made a pair 
 of arms and legs the less in the opposing force. 
 In the Foreign Legion's enlistment bureaux a 
 recruit gets a special welcome when he announces 
 that he is a deserter, and is then looked upon as a 
 really valuable addition to the corps. It is also a fact 
 that France offers sanctuary to all criminals who 
 fly from justice. The Foreign Legion will only 
 give up murderers every other kind of criminal is 
 safe there. And France's selfish reason for this is 
 that she can thereby fill the ranks of a regiment that 
 is always fighting for France and which is always 
 ready to do the hardest work for her in the most 
 unhealthy climates. The average Frenchman has, 
 during the Legion's eighty years of existence, con- 
 tented himself with attributing the successes of the 
 Foreign Legion to the French flag, and has always 
 looked upon the Foreign Legion as a profitable 
 and patriotic institution. It is only quite of late 
 
282 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 that the Foreign Legion has come to be looked 
 upon in France as a problem. To-day the Foreign 
 Legion is not an institution that every French- 
 man considers quite in the natural order of things. 
 Even the French Ministry of War has busied itself 
 with the "Legion problem." It could not, how- 
 ever, quite make up its mind to give up the Legion. 
 The possibility of employing a soldier who receives 
 five centimes a day, and who can be made use of 
 for all sorts of dangerous undertakings in the worst 
 of climates, is too great a temptation. 
 
 Perhaps the real reason for this tenacity is that 
 France, who is so proud of her military traditions, 
 finds, it hard to bring herself to dissolve a corps 
 which has been in existence for more than eighty 
 years and which has been led by many a famous 
 general and marshal of France. 
 
 It has been suggested that it would be a good 
 idea to change the method of recruiting. Pass- 
 ports should be demanded to make sure that the 
 recruit had not got into trouble with the authorities 
 of his own country. Deserters from the armies 
 of other countries should on no condition be 
 accepted. 
 
 There is a diversity of opinion about these 
 suggestions in French military circles. One party 
 asserts that with the deserters the Foreign Legion 
 would lose the flower of its strength, the soldiers 
 who have been trained in other armies. The other 
 side urges that if the pay were raised and the time 
 the men must serve in order to qualify for a 
 pension shortened, the adventurous life in the 
 
J'ACCUSE 283 
 
 Foreign Legion and the hope of promotion would 
 always bring more than enough good stuff from all 
 nations for service under the Legion's flag. In 
 these debates the military point of view is the 
 only one of importance and since, considered 
 from this point of view, the Legion has always 
 borne itself splendidly, things have been left as 
 they were. All suggestions for a change in the 
 organisation of the Legion have naturally been 
 made very quietly. All the same the Legion has, 
 of late, come very much before the public in 
 France. 
 
 There is no doubt that they are beginning to 
 look at the Foreign Legion a little critically in 
 France. The number of those who doubt that the 
 country is right in keeping up this barbarous in- 
 stitution is growing daily. Referring to the great 
 mutiny of the soldiers of the Legion at Saida, 
 Jaures wrote in the Humanite: 
 
 " The Foreign Legion will doubtless be a 
 source of everlasting difficulty to us ; the idea 
 of forming a body of troops for the French 
 army from foreign deserters is at any rate an 
 unusual one." 
 
 This is a step in the right direction. They are 
 beginning to talk about the problem of the Foreign 
 Legion. Its existence is no longer considered 
 absolutely natural. The question has been raised. 
 If the Foreign Legion did not exist, and some 
 member of the French parliament were to suggest 
 the formation of a corps of foreign mercenaries, 
 preferably foreign deserters, the suggestion would 
 
284 IN THE FOREIGN LEGION 
 
 doubtless be received with indignation. The tact- 
 less politician would be sure to be confronted with 
 the somewhat obvious remark that it would be 
 unworthy of the dignity of France to gather a band 
 of foreigners under the tricolour to defend French 
 soil. One would hear some very pretty speeches on 
 the subject. That sort of thing can be tolerated in 
 the Balkan States or in Venezuela or Honduras, but 
 not in our proud France. Some deputy or other 
 would be certain to warn the nation the warning 
 is a very obvious one that other States could 
 institute Foreign Legions, filling their ranks with 
 French deserters. Think of the shudder that 
 would pass through the land at the idea of English 
 ships manned by, or German colonies conquered by, 
 French deserters. 
 
 . . . The Foreign Legion lives upon its past. 
 The Frenchman is accustomed to it and hardly 
 notices what an anachronism it is. 
 
 The problem of the Legion is so easy. It can be 
 divided into two questions : 
 
 Is it fair to pay a man who works really hard a 
 daily wage of five centimes ? 
 
 Is it fair to make use of a poor devil's misfortunes, 
 or the fact that he has got into trouble with the 
 authorities of his native land, in this way for 
 national purposes ? 
 
 The answer to these questions is not difficult. 
 
 In later years especially, the French Govern- 
 ment has made a clean sweep of many French 
 institutions that seemed to be incompatible with 
 the fair fame of France. One can be quite sure 
 
J' ACCUSE 285 
 
 that it will in course of time be recognised that the 
 Foreign Legion must be done away with. 
 
 One is only tempted to ask : How long will it 
 last? 
 
 Quousqice tandem . . . ? 
 
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