P. C. WREN - Tales Of The Foreign Legion. P. C. Wren
amusing, and one caught glimpses of the kindly, witty, and genial original.
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The best of soldiers, be he Maréchal or Soldat deuxième classe, as was the MacSnorrt, may be overcome by a combination and alliance of foes, any one of whom he could defeat alone.
As the MacSnorrt endeavoured to make clear to Captain d'Armentières next day, it was merely the conjunction against him of a good dinner, Haiphong, the stupeedity of the Annamese male in wearing a chignon and a petticoat like a wumman, shum-shum, sunstroke, and his own beautiful but ardent disposition, that had been his undoing. With any one of these he could have coped; by their unholy alliance he had been—he freely admitted it—completely defeated.
Captain d'Armentières heard him with courtesy, and awarded him eight days' salle de police and the peloton de chasse with sympathy.
He had known of similar fortuitous concatenations of adverse circumstance before in connection with le Légionnaire MacSnorrt.
It was the Captain's ordonnance, one Jean Boule, who had, luckily for that reveller, discovered the MacSnortt and encompassed his capture by a strong picket.
Passing a pagoda one night, he had heard, uplifted in monologue, a rich voice whose accents, or accent, he had heard before, that of the MacSnorrt, the Bad Man of the VIIIth Company, recently arrived in a draft from Sidi-bel-Abbès to reinforce the VIIth after certain painful dealings with the Pavilions Noirs, the "pirates" of the Yen Thé.
Mingled with, but far from subduing the vinous voice and hiccups of the MacSnorrt, were the angry murmurings, quick whispers, and the lisping and clicking voices of a native Annamese and Chinese crowd.
Was the fool interfering with those so-tender "religious susceptibilities," and intruding upon priests and their flock in search of moral consolation and fortification? He had no business in there at all.
Following the wall and rounding a corner, Jean Boule came to a gate. Pushing it open gently, he looked in.
Reclining majestically upon the ground, his back against the wall, was the MacSnorrt. In his vast left paw was a bottle of shum-shum, the deadly, maddening spirit distilled from rice. Clasped by his mighty right arm to his colossal bosom, the MacSnorrt held—a doi or Sergeant of Tirailleurs Tonkinois!12
The little man, his lacquered hat, with its red bonnet-strings on one side, his chignon in grave disarray, looked even more like a devil than was his normal wont, as he struggled violently to escape from his degrading and undignified situation.
It was clear that, if the Annamese could get at his bayonet, there would be a vacancy at the head of the clan of MacSnorrt and at the tail of the VIIIth Company of the Legion.
"Lie ye still, lassie," adjured the gigantic Legionary, as his captive struggled again vainly, for the great right arm was not only round his waist, but round both his arms, and he could only pick at the handle of his bayonet with ineffectual finger-tips.
"Lie ye still, ye wee prood besom, or I'll e'en tak' ane o' the ither lasses to ma boosom," threatened the MacSnorrt, but softened the apparent harshness of the threat by a warm lingering kiss upon the yellow cheek of the murderously savage soldier.
He then applied the shum-shum bottle to his lips, poured a libation of the crude and poisonous spirit, and then frankly explained to his captive that he had not selected "her" from among the other "sonsie lassies" by reason of any superior beauty, but simply because he liked her saucy fancy-dress—quite like a vivaandière, and he had always had a tender spot in his hearrt o' hearrts for a vivaandière.
The enraged and half-demented Sergeant screamed to the little crowd of priests, loafers, coolies and Haiphong citizens to knife the foreign devil, or, taking his bayonet, to drive it in under his ear.... The crowd allowed "I dare not" to wait upon "I would"—for the moment.
"Aye! ... Oo-aye! It's not Jock MacSnorrt that could reseest the blaandishments o' onny little deevil o' a vivaandière," confessed the aged roué.... "It was for the sake o' the vivaandières I joined the French airrmy, ye'll ken—when I was an innocent slip o' a laddie.... Romaantic! ...
"Aye—an' they're mostly fat auld runts wi' twa chins," he added, with a sudden fall to pessimism and confession of disillusionment.
"'Tis the ruin o' the British Airrmy, ye'll ken," he confided to the ugly crowd that gradually closed in around him, "that they hae no vivaandières to comfort the puir laddies.... Hae the Gorrdons onny vivaandières, I'll ask ye? The Seaforrths? The Caamerons? The Heelan' Light Infantry? The Royal Scots? ... They hanna. It a' comes o' such matters being in the han's o' the Southrons—the drunken an' lasceevious deils. Look at the Navy.... Is there a ship o' them a'—fra' battleship to river gunboat—that has a vivaandière, I'm speirin' ye, lassie? There isna.... An' theenk o' the graan' worrk they could do for the puir wounded—instead o' they bluidy-minded, sick-bay orrderly deevils!
"Losh, maan! Contemplaate it!
"Eh, Wooman in oor 'oors o' ease
A settin' lightly on oor knees....
"Lie still, ye haverin', snoot-cockin' besom—an' I'll tell ye a' aboot the horrors o' a naval engagement—an' I seen hunnerds. I'll tell ye a' aboot the warrst o' the lot—when I lossed ma guid right arrm. Then conseeder what a deeference ane bonnie vivaandière lassie might ha' made..." A violent struggle from the insanely incensed and ferocious doi.
"Wull ye bide quiet, ma bonnie wean? Or shall I send ye awa' oot into the cauld warrld to airrn yere ain leevin'? Ye're awfu' sma' for sic a fate, ye'll ken, ma bairnie! An' this is no Sauchiehall Street, I'm tellin' ye.... Did ye see the wee-bit gunboats we came in, the morrn? Well, imaagine ane o' they ten times increased and multiplied, an', in fact, made a hantle bigger. I sairved in ane o' yon, but I shall not disclose in what capaacity—save an' except that it was honourable to me on the ane side an' to her Majesty on the ither.... Wull ye bide quiet like a respeckitable tai-tai or I'll hae ye awa' ....
"Eh! maan, a naval engagement's graand. Watter everywheer! On board, I mean. Everywheer. Gaallons o' it." ...
"May a cat tread on your heart!" hissed the struggling doi. "May dragons tear you! May the bellies of mud-fish be your grave! May you be cast on a Mountain of Knives." ...
"What did ye say, lassie? Why do they want watter on booarrd? To hide the awfu' things that fall aboot! Eyes, arrms, legs, noses, ears, toes, fingers—ye wouldna hae them lying there plain for the eye o' man to see? No! Gaallons o' watter...."
"Bide ye quiet, kuniang, or ye won't be a kuniang much longer, I'm thinkin'. Aye! Dozens o' gaallons o' watter. Everywheer. Hoses playin' a' aboot the plaace. Pumps squirrtin' it. Inches o' it on the decks. An' blood! Ma certie! Lassie—ye'd never believe. Hunnerds o' gaallons o' watter, an' as the shells burrst a' aroond—what falls into the watter in a pairrfect hail?" ...
"Devils draw your entrails!" panted the writhing doi.
"Eh? Bullets, d'ye say? That's wheer ye're wrang, lassie. Na! Na!—Eyes, arrms, legs, noses, ears, toes, fingers! Ye'd scarcely credit it. An' thousands o' gaallons o' watter! Juist to hide the awfu' sichts and sounds.... There'll be a gun-team working their gun in watter. Thousan's o' gaallons o' watter. Feet deep. An' a maan wull stoop to fish up a shell for the gun—an' what'll he bring up belike?"
"Be the graves of your ancestors torn open by pariah dogs and their bones devoured!" cursed the Sergeant, getting one arm free at last.
"Bring up a shell, d'ye say, ma wean? More likely an eye or an arrm or a leg, or a nose or an ear or a toe or a finger frae beneath that fearfu' flood.... Oo-aye! Meelions o' gaallons o' water! Feet deep. An' the bed o' that awfu' sea, a wrack o' spare-parts o' the human forrm divine! Meelions o' gaallons o' watter. Yarrds deep on the decks. They always hae it the like o' that in a naval engagement. Aye—I seen hunnerds ..." and the doi had got at his bayonet at last. Then the bonze struck heavy