In this roundabout way, through non-coms, orderlies, and soldier servants, everything was perhaps very much distorted, but it all sounded very probable and typical. The Legion is like a mighty ear-trumpet—through its countless channels it gathers up the officers' gossip and intrigues for its own uses, and really knows a good deal about the state of affairs in Northern Africa; it knows that the military circles at the head of affairs in Algeria have their own axe to grind, and that the clever catch-phrase "pénétration pacifique" was formed in an officers' club, and that greedy squinting at Morocco is as old as the occupation of Algeria!
It was as if every one stood under the ban of a mesmerist. The longing for "le Maroc" spread to the légionnaires, who gave practical evidence of their longing for change and excitement, deserting in crowds. Most of them met their deaths. The border tribes cut their throats.
Others had more luck. In the army of the pretender, the present Sultan, Mulai Hafid, there used to be several officers who were once soldiers of the Foreign Legion!
CHAPTER XII
A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS
The return of the poumpistes : The scale of punishments in the Legion : Of spiteful non-commissioned officers : The Legion's axiom : Sad history of Little Jean : The punishment machine : Lost years : A légionnaire's earnings in five years—francs 127.75 : The prisons in the Foreign Legion : Pestilential atmosphere : Human sardines : The general cells : Life in the prison : On sentry duty among the prisoners
"Nom de Dieu!—voilà les poumpistes!" cried the sergeant of the guard at the barrack gates. Every one sprang up. We of the guard (my company was on guard that day) crowded round the gate; the adjutant vaguemestre, the regimental postmaster, ran out of his little office opposite the guard-room; a couple of officers came up, and légionnaires streamed out from everywhere in a wild rush for the entrance to the barracks.
"The poumpistes have come back!" they cried to each other.
It was in fact the truants from our company, poor Rader and his five friends. They were indeed a pitiful sight. Two gendarmes brought them in. They were all six bound together by a thin steel chain. Their dirty uniforms hung around them in rags; they were faint and emaciated and looked dead tired. Their faces were scarred. Rader had a blood-stained bandage round his right arm. In their eyes you could read the deadly fear of the punishment that awaited them.