Civilization: Tales of the Orient

by Ellen N. La Motte

Maubert was at the Front. Near it, that is, but in the First Zone of the Armies and shut off from communication with the rear. He was shut off from communication with his wife and family, isolated in a little hut standing by the roadside, his sentry box. A little box of straw standing upright on the roadside, and with just enough room for him inside, also standing upright. No more. Whenever he heard the whir of a motor coming down the road, he opened his front door and stood squarely in the middle of the roadway, waving a red flag by day or a lantern by night, and expecting, both night and day, to be run down and killed by the onrushing motor. He flagged the ambulances and got cursed for it. He flagged the General's car and got cursed for it. Impossible pieces of paper were shoved out to him to read, filled with unintelligible hieroglyphics, which he could not read, which he made a vain pretence of reading and then concluded were all right. After which the car or the ambulance dashed on again, and he communed with himself within his hut, wondering whether the car was carrying a uniformed spy, or whether the ambulance was carrying a spy hidden under its brown wings, beneath the seat somewhere. It was all so perplexing and precarious, this business of sentry duty. The papers issued by the D.E.S. were so illegible. Sometimes they were blue, sometimes pink, and the remarks written on them were such that no one could understand or know what they were about. People had the right to circulate by this road or that—and when they were trying to circulate by a route not specified in the blue or pink paper, they always explained glibly that it was because they had missed the way, and made the wrong turning. It was all so perplexing. Whenever he stopped their cars, the General was always so furiously impatient, and the ambulance drivers were always so furiously impatient, and one asked you if you did not respect the Army of France, and the other if you did not respect the wounded of France, if you had no pity for them, and must delay them—altogether it was very perplexing. Maubert always had the impression that if he failed in his duties, if he let through a general who wore stripes and medals galore, yet who was a spy general, that he would be courtmartialed and shot. Or if he let through an ambulance full of wounded—apparently—yet with a spy concealed in the body—that he would be courtmartialed and shot. Always he had in his mind this fear of being courtmartialed and shot, and it made him very nervous, and he did not like to tell people that he could barely read and write. Very barely able to read and write, and totally unable to read the hieroglyphics written on the pink and blue papers issued down the road by Headquarters, at the D.E.S. He felt that some one ought to know these facts about himself, these extenuating circumstances, in case of trouble. Yet he hesitated to give himself away. Bad as it was, there were worse jobs than sentry duty.

A little way down the road there was an estaminet, where he slept when he could, where he spent his leisure hours, where he bought as much wine as he could pay for. But his sentry box always confronted him, which leaked when it rained, and the wind blew through it, and on certain days, when there was much travel by the road, he hardly spent a moment inside it but was always standing in the mud and wind of the highway, waving his flag, and stopping impatient, snorting motors. And always pretending that he could read the pink and blue papers, angrily thrust out for his inspection. Too great a responsibility for one who could barely read and write.

Came the time, eventually, for his leave. Five days permission. One day to get to Paris. One day from Paris to his province. One day in his province at home with his wife. One day back to Paris, one day to get back to his sentry box in the First Zone of the Armies. Not much time, all considered. He bought a bottle of wine at the estaminet, and got aboard the train for Paris. Somewhere along the route came a long stop, and he bought another bottle of wine—forty centimes. Another stop, and another bottle of wine. He thought much of his wife during these long hours of the journey—thoughts augmented and made glowing by three bottles of wine. She wasn't so bad, after all.

The Gare Montparnasse was reached, and he got off, dizzily, to change trains. He knew, vaguely, that to get to his province in the interior, he must first somehow get to the Gare du Nord. There was a Métro entrance somewhere about the Gare Montparnasse and he tried to find it. The Métro would take him to the Gare du Nord. No good. Such crowds of people all about, and they called him Mon Vieux, and pulled him this way and that, laughing with him, offering him cigarettes and happy comments, received by a brain in which three bottles of wine were already fermenting. Thus it happened that he missed the Métro entrance, and instead of finding a métro to take him to the Gare du Nord, he missed the entrance, turned quite wrong, and walked up the middle of the rue de la Gaiétè. And because of the three bottles of wine within him—entirely within his head—he walked light-heartedly up the rue de la Gaiétè, with his helmet tossed backwards on his shaggy head, his heavy kit swinging in disordered fashion from his shoulders, his mouth open, shouting meaningless things to the passers-by, and his steps very short, jerky and unsteady. Thus it happened, that many people, seeing him in this condition, shuddered, and asked what France had come to, when she must place her faith in such men as that. Other people, however, laughed at him, and made way for him, or closed in on him and squeezed his arm, and whispered things into his ears. Back and forth he ricochetted along the narrow street, singing and swinging, mouth open, with strange, happy cries coming from it. Some laughed and said what a pity, and others laughed and said how perfectly natural and what could you expect.

Presently down the street came a big, double decked tramcar, and Maubert stood in front of the tramcar, refusing to give way. It should have presented a blue paper to him—or a pink paper—anyway, there he stood in front of it, asking for its permission to circulate, and as it had no permission, it stopped within an inch of running over him, while the conductor leaned forward shouting curses. Then it was that a firm but gentle hand inserted itself within Maubert's arm, while a firm but gentle voice asked Maubert to be a good boy and come with her. Maubert was very dazed, and also perplexed that he had not received a paper from the big, double-decked tramcar, which obviously had no right to circulate without such permission, sanctioned by himself. He was gently drawn off the tracks, by that unknown arm, while the big tramcar proceeded on its way without permission. It was all wrong, yet Maubert felt himself drawn to one side of the roadway, felt himself still propelled along by that gentle but firm arm, and looked to see who was leading him. He was quite satisfied by what he saw. The three bottles of wine made him very uncritical, but they also inflamed certain other faculties. To these other faculties his befogged mind gave quick response. To Hell with the tramcar, papers or no papers, pink or blue. Also, although not quite so emphatically, he relinquished all thoughts of arriving at the Gare du Nord, and of finding a train to take him home to his province, where his wife lived. The reasons that made him desire his wife, were quite satisfied with the gentle pressure on his arm. Thus it happened that big Maubert, shaggy and dirty and drunk, reeling down the rue de la Gaiétè, very suddenly gave up all idea of finding his way to his province in the interior.

Never mind about those three days in Paris. Maubert was quite sober when he got on the train again at Montparnasse. He did not regret his larger vacation. He had had a very good permission, take it all in all.

III

At about the time that Maubert found himself mobilised and summoned into the reserves, a further mobilisation of subjects of the French Empire was taking place in certain little known, outlying dominions of the "Empire." I should have said Republic or even Democracy. The result, however, is all the same. In certain outlying portions of the mighty Empire or Republic or Democracy, as you will, further mobilisation of French subjects was taking place, although in these outlying dominions the forces were not mobilised but volunteered. That is to say, the headsman or chief of a certain village, lying somewhere between the Equator and ten degrees North latitude, was requested by those in authority to furnish so many volunteers. The word being thus passed round, volunteers presented themselves, voluntarily. Among them was Ouk. Ouk knew, having been so informed by the headsman of his village, that failure to respond to this opportunity meant a voluntary sojourn in the jungle. Ouk hated the jungle. All his life he had lived in terror of it, of the evil forces of the jungle, strangling and venomous, therefore he did not wish to take refuge amongst them, for he knew them well. Of the two alternatives, the risks of civilization seemed preferable. Civilization was an unknown quantity, whereas the jungle was familiar to himself and his ancestors, and the fear transmitted by his ancestors was firmly emplanted in his mind. Therefore he had no special desire to sojourn amongst the mighty forces of the forest, which he knew to be overwhelming. At that time, he did not know that the forces of civilization were equally sinister, equally overwhelming. All his belated brain knew, was that if he failed to answer the call of those in authority, he must take refuge in the forests. Which was sure death. It was sure death to wander defenceless, unarmed, in the twilight gloom of noon day, enveloped by dense overgrowth, avoiding venomous serpents and vile stinging insects by day, and crouching by night from man-eating tigers. It presented therefore, no pleasant alternative—no free wandering amidst beautiful, tropical trees and vines heavy with luscious fruits—there would be no drinking from running streams in pleasant, sunlit clearings. Ouk knew the jungle, and as the alternative was civilization, he chose civilization which he did not yet know. Therefore he freely offered himself one evening, coming from his native village attired in a gay sarong, a peaked hat, and nothing more. He entered a camp, where he found himself in company with other volunteers, pressed into the service of civilization by the same pressure that had so appealed to himself. There were several hundred of them in this camp, all learning the ways of Europe, and learning with difficulty and pain. The most painful thing, perhaps, were the coarse leather shoes they were obliged to wear. Ouk's feet had been accustomed to being bare—clad, on extreme occasions, with pliant straw sandals. He garbed them now, according to instructions, in hard, coarse leather shoes, furnished by those in authority, which they told him would do much to protect his sensitive feet against the cold of a French winter. Ouk had no ideas as to the rigours of a French winter, but the heavy shoes were exceedingly painful. In exchange for his gay sarong, they gave him a thick, ill fitting suit of khaki flannel, in which he smothered, but this, they likewise explained to him, would do much to protect him from the inclemency of French weather. Thus wound up and bound up, and suffering mightily in the garb of European civilization, Ouk gave himself up to learn how to protect it. The alternative to this decision, being as we have said, an alternative that he could not bring himself to face.

Three months of training being accomplished, Ouk and his companions were by that time fitted to go forth for the protection of great ideals. They were the humble defenders of these ideals, and from time to time the newspapers spoke in glowing terms, of their sentimental, clamorous wish to defend them. Even in these remote, unknown regions, somewhere between the Equator and ten degrees North latitude, volunteers were pressing forward to uphold the high traditions of their masters. Ouk and his companions knew nothing of these sonorous, ringing phrases in the papers. They knew only of the alternative, the jungle. Time came and the day came when they were all ushered forth from their training camp, packed into a big junk, and released into the stormy tossings of the harbour, there to await the arrival of the French Mail, that was to convey them to Europe. The sun beat down hot upon them, in their unaccustomed shoes and khaki, the harbour waves tossed violently, and the French Mail was late. Eventually it arrived, however, and they all scrambled aboard, passing along a narrow gangplank from which four of them slipped and were drowned in the sea. But four out of five hundred was a small matter, quite insignificant.

When the French Mail arrived at Saigon, Ouk was able to replenish his supply of betel nut and sirra leaves, buying them from coolies in bobbing sampans, which sampans had been allowed to tie themselves to the other side of the steamer. At Singapore also he bought himself more betel nut and sirra leaves, but after leaving Singapore he was unable to replenish his stock, and consequently suffered. Every one with him, in that great company of volunteers, also suffered. It was an unexpected deprivation. The ship ploughed along, however, the officers taking small notice of Ouk and his kind—indeed, they only referred to Ouk by number, for no one of those in authority could possibly remember the outlandish names of these heathen. Nor did their names greatly matter.