"No, nothing special," I answered.
CHAPTER XIII
SOME TYPES OF VICE
A variety of human vices : The red wine of Algeria : Shum-Shum : If there were no wine
It was always a marvel to me that neither cards nor dice played the slightest part in the life of the Legion, in sharp contrast with the important part they take in the life of the English Tommy, and especially of the American soldier, who is an incorrigible gambler. On a little station in Texas a detachment of sly old regulars in the course of the single night that they were quartered there cleaned out all the cowboys of the neighbourhood. I was one of the victims. But that's another story…. Anyhow, the Legion is free from the vice of gambling. This is perhaps hardly to be wondered at; five centimes wages. The possibility of winning or losing five centimes is hardly worth a throw of the dice.
In its place all the vices of almost every nation in the world can be found in the Foreign Legion. This is not saying too much; I've looked on.
Vicious influences are, however, much stronger in Indo-China and in French Tonquin, where the garrisons of the various stations are all drawn from the Legion. Veterans like Smith used to tell me things about the life in Tonquin that almost made my hair stand on end. In the inland districts the stations are quite small, and a few légionnaires have to look after a large number of natives. The entire system of justice on such a station, including the power of life and death, lies in the hands of a couple of young officers and a few sergeants and corporals. Surrounded by all possible human vices in their very worst forms, to whose influence the deadly monotony inevitable on one of these stations is added, the men live exposed to constant danger occasioned both by the intrigues among the natives and the murderous climate. The one seeks relief in spirits, the other swears by opium. The fact that opium-smoking plays an important part in the life of the French Navy and among the French Army officers in the Colonies has been made public often enough already: every veteran in the Legion knows well enough that in Toulon and Marseilles there are countless opium dens which depend solely on the custom of French officers. These opium dens were thoroughly discussed in the French press during the trial of the midshipman Ullmo.
The habit of opium-smoking has, in nearly all cases, been acquired in Indo-China. Spirits, opium, and loneliness form the fruitful soil in which the Legion's vice takes root. In solitary cases even the officers come under its influence. When this happens the results are sometimes very terrible….
Among the garrisons of Indo-China the most notorious used to be those of Sui-can and Bac-le. A certain Lieutenant Duchesne, who was later killed in battle, many say by his own men, and the fact that the bullet hit him in the back goes to prove the truth of this statement, has made his name immortal in the Legion in this connection. Though he has been dead several years, one still hears of his cruelty. His légionnaires were all forced to submit themselves to his vicious freaks, resistance being punished with the penal section, which is ten times worse in Tonquin than those in Algeria. The obedient, however, were promoted.