Marching, the use of rifle and bayonet, and gymnastic classes, do not by any means exhaust the schedule of conscript training. There is all the business of barrack room life, the cleaning of equipment in which the corporal is ever at hand to instruct, and men in their second year are also at hand to advise and give hints; there are fatigues, white-washing, trench-digging, and all sorts of things of which in pre-military days, probably, the conscript never dreamed. There are route marches with the battalion, the commanding officer and band at the head. There is always something to do, always something waiting to be done, and in looking forward there is an endless succession of very busy days to contemplate. One goes to bed tired—very healthily tired—and one wakens to work. The work is not always pleasant, but it has the charm—if such it can be called—of never-ending variety. A monotonous variety it may be, but then, one has little time to think, and then there is always the canteen, and Jean, who sleeps in the corner opposite Pierre, has just received his allowance from home. There is yet ten minutes before parade—we will go with Jean to the canteen....
OFF DUTY
There is a strict but unwritten law of the French Army as regards the canteen: no man may take a drink by himself. Faire suisse is the term applied, if one goes to the canteen alone, and the rest of the men in the conscript's room look on him as something of a mean fellow if he does such a thing as this. Of course, it works out at the same thing in the end, and share and share alike is not a bad principle, while it is eminently good Republicanism. Jean must share his remittance from home with somebody; he can pick the men whom he desires to treat, but he must not lay himself open to the accusation of faire suisse, no matter what arm of the service he represents. It is bad comradeship, for his fellows, when they have a slice of luck, would not think of doing it. Why should he?
Thus, and with justice, they reason, and out of such reasoning comes the sharing of the last drops of water with a comrade on the field, the acts of self-denial and courageous self-sacrifice for which men of the French Army have always been famed. It is a little thing in itself, this compulsory sharing of one's luck, but it leads to great things, at times.
Should Jean go to the canteen alone, punishment awaits him from his comrades. If he is well liked, he will get off with having his bed tipped up after he has got to sleep at night. If he is a surly fellow, he may reckon on what British troops know as a "blanket court-martial," which means that his comrades of the room will catch him and place him in a blanket, the edges of which are held all round by his fellow soldiers. At a given signal the blanket will be given a mighty heave upward by all who are holding it, and Jean will fly ceiling-ward, to alight again in the blanket and again be heaved up. This process, repeated a dozen times or so, leaves Jean with not a sufficiency of breath to beg for mercy, while at the same time he is quite undamaged, and, if he is wise, he will not incur the accusation of faire suisse again.
He may be fool enough to report the matter to his sergeant, as, by the rules of the service, he is entitled to do. In that case the sergeant will threaten Jean's comrades with punishment for causing annoyance to a man, but the threat, as the men well know, is all that will happen to them—but not all that will transpire as regards Jean. The French soldier abhors a sneak, and treats him as he deserves. Jean will get a rough time for many days to come, and will not dare to complain to the sergeant again. It is rough justice, but effective; so long as a man plays the game properly with his fellows, he is all right, and the sergeant knows it. Hence Jean may make complaints till he is black in the face about the conduct of his fellows, but by so doing he will only make himself unpopular, and before he has got far into his first year of service he learns to take his own part, and not to go running to the sergeant with his little troubles. It does not pay—and, if it did, the French Army would not be what it is in the matter of comradeship and good feeling.
One good thing about the canteen is its cheapness. One can get coffee and a roll—which amounts to a French conscript's breakfast—for the equivalent of three halfpence, and this charge is a fair sample of the prices of all things. Whatever one may ask for, too, it is served in good quality, for the canteen is under strict supervision of the officers, who are quick to note and remedy any cause for complaint on the part of the men.
Early morning breakfast, as it is served in the British Army, is unknown in French units. On turning out in the morning, coffee is brought round to the barrack rooms, but the first real meal of the day is "soup" at ten o'clock. The food is properly served in dishes, and a corporal or a man told off for the duty is at the head of each table to help each man to his allowance, for which an enamelled plate is provided. Crockery is unsafe in a barrack room, and the fact is wisely recognised.