"A gauche—gauche means left about," explained the corporal, and repeated it ten times, until "gauche" had been mastered. The most necessary French expressions were very quickly learnt by this most natural of all methods.
A hot sun burned down on us. Ten times during a single forenoon every stitch of clothes on one's body was soaked with perspiration, and ten times it dried again. In the pauses one stood about, smoking hand-twisted cigarettes, the inevitable cigarette of the Legion smoked in every free moment, and by which the pause is measured according to the old custom of the Legion? The pause was the duration of a cigarette. When the corporal had finished smoking his cigarette he slowly walked to a distance of about one or two hundred metres and lifted his hand:
"A moi."
That meant we were to run up to him and recommence work.
"I've never run so d——d fast in all my life," was Herr von Rader's continual lament. "I've an idea the suckers here are mistaking me for an express train!"
At 11 A.M. we marched back to barracks. Knapsack and cartridge-belt were thrown into the "paquetage," and dead tired we threw ourselves upon our beds. But after a few short minutes, the soup signal rang out from the barrack-yard.
"A la soupe, légionnaires, à la soupe, soupe, soupe."
"Soupe …" every one yelled. Woe if the orderly of the room did not rush to the kitchen, and woe if he did not reappear with the soup-kettle in the twinkling of an eye! In everything connected with food a genuine légionnaire stands no nonsense—he has too often suffered starvation on marches and campaigns not to appreciate "la gamelle."
The morning soup, the first of the two daily meals, was the same every day: Bread soup, boiled together, with potatoes and vegetables, and a piece of meat. With it the grey-white French military bread was served, and every other day a quarter of a litre of heavy red wine. The food was eaten off tin plates at the two long tables in our quarters. There was, however, not room enough for all at the tables. The question of seats the Legion's etiquette decided; the privilege of sitting down at table belonged to the old légionnaires.
After the soup the kitchen corporal rushed from room to room: