Corporal Jacques of the Foreign Legion — Edition Insights

had given him the choice between a penitentiary and the Legion. He chose the Legion, because, as he said, he liked the name better.

He was quite aware that life in the Legion was as hard as life in a penitentiary, and he did not care a button about the social difference; he liked the name better, that was all. He was an artist.

He stood now, for a second, glancing at the others, nineteen men stretched in all the attitudes of slumber. Germans, French, an Englishman, an American, a Greek and a Russian. Then, shuffling on some clothes, he left the room silently as the shadow of a moving cat.

In a moment he was back with a huge jug of steaming coffee, and as he entered shouting to the others to wake up, the _réveillé_ came from the barrack yard. The _réveillé_ of the French Army that sounds every morning across France to find its echo in Algeria.

"Rat tat tat ta, Rat tat tat ta, Rat tat tat ta ta ta ta. Rat tat tat ta, Rat tat tat ta, Rat tat tat ta, tat ta."

In a moment the room was astir. Between the _réveillé_ and the muster in the barrack yard there was only half an hour, yet in that half hour the coffee was drunk, the men dressed, the beds made and the floor swept, Jacques yelling to the others to hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, as it was his duty to put the completing touch to the dusting and cleaning and fetch the water.

Then he came tearing down the stairs after the rest, and out in the barrack yard half cut in two by the blaze of the six o'clock sun, and under a sky blue as a cornflower, the long, long lines of white-clad men fell in whilst the echoes roused to the bugles.

Then, led by the bugles, the columns wheeled out of the barrack gates, making for the great drill ground, where the arms were piled and the men were exercised at the double.

It was terrific, with the sun-blaze now in their faces, with the sun beating now on their backs, and, now, with their sides to a furnace door round and round and round the great parade ground they went, the dust rising and hanging about them in a haze.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, and then the thunder and movement ceased and the légionnaires, released for a moment after their first exercise of the day, broke into groups, cigarettes were lit, and the dust-hazed air filled with the fumes of caporal.

Jacques, though sweating, showed little signs of stress; he had lungs of leather. Not so Casmir, a man in his company to whom he was talking.

Casmir was a bitter-looking individual who had once been a Government clerk. His white uniform was clinging to him with perspiration, and he was just getting his wind back.

The two men were walking up and down rapidly, for it is impossible to stand still after half an hour of the double.

"Well," said Casmir, "this finishes me. This is the last time. I'm off."

He had been threatening for the last week or so to make a bolt.

Jacques, a fountain of wisdom in most things practical, had always dissuaded him from this fatal course. The man who tries to escape from the grip of the Legion is, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, brought back, and when he is brought back, Heaven help him.

"Take my advice," said Jacques, "and leave that alone. No good. Stick it as I have done and make the best of it. I have been at it four years and ten months to-morrow, and in another two months I walk out like a gentleman."

"Well," said Casmir, "I have been in it only six months and in another twelve hours--well, you will see."

"Have your way," said Jacques, "you are a fool. Do you think a clever man like myself would not have cut and run years ago had there been a decent chance? I weighed it all ages ago. The chance is too small and the punishment too big. It's impossible to drill sense into a head like yours, else I'd say, 'Look at me. If running away is not good enough for me, it's not good enough for you.'"

"All the same, I'm going to do it," said Casmir.

"Then do it and be damned," said Jacques.

The bugle was sounding "Fall in," and the morning exercises went on. At eleven o'clock, sweating, dusty, fagged out but cheerful, the vast regiment of légionnaires, wheeling in column formation to the sound of drums as well as bugles, marched back to barracks.