The Wages of Virtue. Percival Christopher Wren
wouldn't I give for some good hot tea and blinni!"
"We're bound to get something of some sort before long--though it won't be zakuska. Don't give way on the very threshold now. It is our one chance, or I would not have brought you here, Olichka."
"Ssh!" whispered back the other. "Don't call me that here, Feodor."
"Of course not, Mikhail, stout fellow," replied Feodor, and smote his companion on the back.
Regarding them, sharp-eyed, stood the Cockney, an undersized, narrow-chested, but wiry-looking person--a typical East End sparrow; impudent, assertive, thoroughly self-reliant, tenacious, and courageous; of the class that produces admirable specimens of the genus "Tommy."
In curious contrast to his look of gamin alertness was that of his neighbour, a most stolid, dull and heavy-looking Dutchman, whose sole conversational effort was the grunt "Verstaan nie," whenever addressed. Like every other member of the draft he appeared "to feel his position" keenly, and distinctly to deplore it. Such expression as his bovine face possessed, suggested that Algerian sun and sands compared unfavourably with Dutch mists and polders, and the barrack-square of the Legion with the fat and comfortable stern of a Scheldt canal boat.
Square-headed, flat-faced Germans, gesticulating Alsatians and Lorraines, fair Swiss, and Belgians, with a sprinkling of Italians, swarthy Spaniards, Austrians and French, made up the remainder of the party, men whose status, age, appearance, bearing, and origins were as diverse as their nationalities levelled by a common desperate need (of food, or sanctuary, or a fresh start in life), and united by a common filthiness, squalor, and dejection--a gang powerless in the bonds of hunger and fear, delivered bound into the relentless, grinding mills of the Legion.
And thus, distinguished and apart, though in their midst, stood the well-dressed Englishman, apparently calm, incurious, with equal mind; his linen fresh, his face shaven, his clothing uncreased, his air rather that of one who awaits the result of the footman's enquiry as to whether Her Ladyship is "at home" to him.
More and more, the heart of Sir Montague Merline warmed to this young man of his own race and class, with his square shoulders, flat back, calm bearing, and hard high look. He approved and admired his air and appearance of being a Man, a Gentleman, and a Soldier. Had he a son, it was just such a youth as this he would have him be.
"Any 'Murricans thar?" suddenly bawled the Bucking Bronco.
"Nao," replied the Cockney youth, craning forward. "But I'm Henglish--which is better any d'y in the week, ain't it?"
The eye of the large American travelled slowly and deliberately from the crown of the head to the tip of the toe of the Cockney, and back. He then said nothing--with some eloquence.
"Say, ma honey, yew talk U.S. any?" queried a gigantic Negro, in the uniform of the Legion (presumably recruited in France as a free American citizen of Anglo-Saxon speech), addressing himself to the tall Englishman. "Youse ain't Dago, nor Dutchie, nor French. Cough it up, Bo, right hyar ef youse U.S."
The eyes of the young Englishman narrowed slightly, and his naturally haughty expression appeared to deepen toward one of contempt and disgust. Otherwise he took no notice of the Negro, nor of his question.
Remarking, "Some poah white trash," the Negro turned to the next man with the same query.
Cries in various tongues, such as "Anybody from Spain?" "Anyone from Vienna?" "Any Switzers about?" and similar attempts by the crowding, jostling Legionaries to discover a compatriot, and possibly a "towny," evoked gleams and glances of interest from the haggard, wretched eyes of the "blues," and, occasionally, answering cries from their grim and grimy lips.
A swaggering, strutting Sergeant emerged from the neighbouring regimental offices, roared "Garde à vous," brought the recruits to attention, and called the roll. As prophesied by Legionary John Bull, the whole draft was assigned to the Seventh Company, recently depleted by the desertion, en masse, of a cafard-smitten German escouade, or section, who had gone "on pump," merely to die in the desert at the hands of the Arabs--several horribly tortured, all horribly mangled.
Having called the roll, this Sergeant, not strictly following the example of the Sergeant of the Guard, looked the draft over more in anger than in sorrow.
"Oh, Name of the Name of Beautiful Beelzebub," bawled he, "but what have we here? To drill such worm-casts! Quel métier! Quel chien d'un métier! Stand up, stand up, oh sons of Arab mothers and pariah dogs," and then, feigning sudden and unconquerable sickness, he turned upon the Corporal in charge with a roar of--
"March these sacred pigs to their accursed sties."
As the heterogeneous gang stepped off at the word of command, "En avant. Marche!" toward the Quartermaster's store of the Seventh Company, it was clear to the experienced eye that the great majority were "Back to the army again," and were either deserters, or men who had already put in their military service in the armies of their own countries.
In the store-room they were endowed by the Fourrier-Sergent, to the accompaniment of torrential profanity, with white fatigue-uniforms, night-caps, rough shirts, harsh towels, and scraps of soap. From the store-room the squad was "personally conducted" by another, and even more terrible, Sergeant to a washing-shed beyond the drill-ground, and bidden to soap and scour itself, and then stand beneath the primitive shower-baths until purged and clean as never before in its unspeakable life.
As they neared the washing-shed, the bare idea of ablutions, or the idea of bare ablutions, appeared to strike consternation, if not positive terror, into the heart of at least one member of the squad, for the young Russian who had been addressed by his twin as Mikhail suddenly seized the other's arm and said with a gasp--
"Oh, Fedichka, how can I? Oh Fedia, Fedia, what shall I do?"
"We must trust in God, and use our wits, Olusha. I will … "
But a roar of "Silence, Oh Son of Seven Pigs," from the Sergeant, cut him short as they reached the shed.
"Now strip and scrub your mangy skins, you dogs. Scrape your crawling hides until the floor is thick in hog-bristles and earth, oh Great-grandsons of Sacréd Swine," he further adjured the wretched "blues," with horrible threats and fearful oaths.
"Wash, you mud-caked vermin, wash, for the carcase of the Legionary must be as spotless as the Fame of the Legion, or the honour of its smartest Sergeant--Sergeant Legros," and he lapped his bulging chest lest any Boeotian present should be ignorant of the identity of Sergeant Legros of the Legion.
Walking up and down before the doorless stalls in which the naked recruits washed, Sergeant Legros hurled taunts, gibes, insults, and curses at his charges, stopping from time to time to give special attention to anyone who had the misfortune to acquire his particular regard. Pausing to stare at the tall Englishman in affected disgust at the condition of his brilliant and glowing skin, he enquired--
"Is that a vest, disclosed by scrubbing and the action of water? Or is it your hide, pig?" And was somewhat taken aback by the cool and pleasant reply,
"No, that is not a new, pink silk vest that you see, Sergeant, it really is my own skin--but many thanks for the kind compliment, none the less."
Sergeant Legros eyed the recruit with something dimly and distantly akin to pity. Mad as a March hare, poor wretch, of course--it could not be intentional impudence--and the Sergeant smiled austerely--he would probably die in the cells ere long, if le cafard did not send him to the Zephyrs, the firing-platoon, or the Arabs. Mad to begin with! Ho! Ho! What a jest!--and the Sergeant chuckled.
But what was this? Did the good Sergeant's eyes deceive him? Or was there, in the next compartment, a lousy, lazy "blue" pretending to cleanse his foul and sinful carcase without completely stripping? The young Russian, Mikhail, standing with his back to the doorway, was unenthusiastically washing the upper part of his body.
Sergeant Legros stiffened like a pointer, at the sight. Rank disobedience! Flagrant defiance of orders, coupled with the laziest and filthiest indifference to