There was no appeal. What the non-commissioned officer said, was true; and what he did, was right, as against the private soldier. The resulting discipline was wonderful--and so was the bitterness, hatred, and despair of some of the victims of injustice and personal spite.
A sergeant had only to continue punishing a victim, for the latter to earn the unfavourable notice of the officer, when the latter read the punishment book, and to find his punishment doubled--with a warning to beware lest something really serious happened to him.
The Americans were not as lucky, or not as careful, as we three. For one thing, they sometimes drank the appalling maddening filth sold in the low-class wine-shops of the Spanish quarter or the Ghetto. Crude alcohol made from figs, rice, or wood, and known as bapédi, tchum-tchum, and genièvre, would make Buddy's temper explosive and uncertain, while it rendered Hank indiscriminatingly affectionate and apt to fall heavily upon the neck of the Sergeant of the Guard, when the latter admitted him, singing joyously, in the watches of the night.
Then was Lejaune happy, and reminded them of how they had opened their mouths in his presence, upon the evening of their entry into the Legion.
When they were confined to barracks, he would have the defaulters' roll called at odd times, in the hope of their missing it, and, when they were in the salle de police, would see that the Sergeant of the Guard turned them out hourly, under pretence of suspecting that they had tobacco or drink.
Sometimes he would go himself to their cells, in the middle of the night, rouse them with a sudden roar, and give a swift, harsh order, in the hope that it would be disobeyed through resentment or drunken stupidity.
I think he would have given a month's pay to have succeeded in goading one of them into striking him. It was my constant fear that Buddy would do so. And daily we dinned this into their ears, and prayed that something of the sort would not happen. However, they were old soldiers and wily Americans. . . .
And so the months passed, and every week I heard from my darling. Nothing happened at Brandon Abbas.
Gussie had gone to Sandhurst, the Chaplain was about again, and Uncle Hector had postponed his home-coming after all, and had gone to Kashmir to shoot bear, as he had had poor sport with tiger in the Central Provinces.
No reference was ever made to the missing "Blue Water," no questions had been asked of Isobel, and she had volunteered no information as to our whereabouts and her being in communication with me.
Also she would "come into" her money on her next birthday, and she was then going to do a little travelling, and intended to wander in Algeria!
"Hope she comes before we go--or that we don't go before she comes," said Digby, on learning this last piece of information--for we were full of hope that we should be among those selected for the big special draft that was going south before long.
Everyone knew that a battalion, a thousand strong, was going to "demonstrate" on the border shortly, and "demonstrating" meant further peaceful penetration with the bayonet, active service, and chances of distinction, decoration, and promotion.
If we did not go we should be bitterly disappointed, and lapse into mere bored and disillusioned victims of a monotonous soul-killing routine, daily doing the drill in which we were perfect; cursing the guard-mounting, sentry-go, and endless "fatigues"; learning the things we knew by heart; performing the exercises and operations we could do blindfold; and dragging ourselves through the killing route-marches that we hated.
But what a cruel thing if we were selected and sent off just as Isobel was coming!
On the other hand, if we were not taken (and we were still very junior soldiers), we should at any rate have Isobel's visit to Sidi-bel-Abbès to look forward to.
So great was my longing to see her that, had I been alone, I really think that I should, at times, have toyed with the idea of "going on pump," "making the promenade," which all légionnaires continually discuss and frequently attempt. This "going on pump," whatever that may mean, is the Legion name for deserting, and generally consists in slow preparation and swift capture, or a few days' thirst-agony in the desert, and ignominious return, or else in unspeakable torture and mutilation at the hands of the Arabs.
Less than one in a hundred succeed in escaping, for, in addition to the patrols, the desert, and the Arabs, the native armed-police goumiers receive a reward of twenty-five francs a head for the return of deserters, dead or alive.
Being matchless trackers, well-armed, good shots, and brave men, they are very successful bloodhounds.
However, the attempt is frequently made by maddened victims of injustice or of sheer monotony and hardship, and their punishment, when caught, varies from leniency to cruel severity, according to the degree of cafard from which they were suffering, and to the amount of uniform and kit they may have lost.
One man, whom I knew personally, when under sentence to appear before the supreme court martial of Oran, which in his case meant certain death, got clean away, and was known to have escaped from the country.
Several, whom I knew, went off into the desert and were either found dead and mutilated, or never heard of more; and many either escaped and surrendered again, or were brought back running, or dragging on the ground, at the end of a cord tied to the saddle of an Arab police goum. . . .
However, we had come here to make careers for ourselves as Soldiers of Fortune, and to become Generals in the Army of France, as other foreigners had done, from the ranks of the Legion. And we did our utmost to achieve selection for the picked battalion that was to march south for the next forward leap of the apostles of pacific penetration (or pacification of the newly-penetrated areas) of the Sahara of the Soudan.
§9.
One evening, at about this period of our depôt life, Maris, the Swiss ex-courier, came to me as I lay on my cot, resting and awaiting the return of Michael and Digby from corvée. Said he:
"I have something to tell you, Monsieur Smith. You have done me many a good turn, and you saved me from prison when my tunic was stolen and I could not have replaced it in time for the adjudant's inspection. . . . Will you and your brothers meet me at Mustapha's at six to-night? It will be worth your while. We shall be safe enough there, especially if we talk in English . . ." and he glanced apprehensively round the busy room, and jerked his head towards Colonna and an Italian named Guantaio, who were working together at the table.
I thanked him and said that I would tell my brothers, and that if they returned in time, from the "fatigue" on which they were engaged, we would look in at Mustapha's.
When Michael and Digby came in from the job of sweeping and weeding, for which they had been seized by a sergeant, I told them what Maris had said.
"Better go," remarked Michael. "Maris is the clean potato, I think. No harm in hearing it anyhow."
Mustapha's was an Arab café, where we got splendid coffee very cheaply--thick, black, and sweet, with a drop of vanilla, a drop of hashish oil, or of opium, a drop of orange-essence, and other flavourings.
Here we rested ourselves on a big and very low divan, with a solid wall behind us, and awaited Maris, who came a few minutes later.
"It's like this, my friends," said he, in his excellent English, when we had got our little clay cups of coffee steaming on the floor in front of us. "I don't want to make what you call the mare's nest, isn't it? But Boldini is up to his tricks again. . . . I have heard a lot about him from Vaerren and from old légionnaires who served with him before. . . . He is the bad hat, that one. They say that Lejaune will get him made a corporal soon. . .