CHAPTER IX
"MARCH OR DIE!"
The Legion's war-cry : A night alarm : On the march : The counting of the milestones : Under canvas : The brutality of the marches : The légionnaire and the staff doctor : My fight for an opiate : The "marching pig" : The psychology of the marches : Excited nerves : "Cafard" : The song of imprecations
Weeks passed. Recruit time was over, and I was serving with the troops.
From the very beginning I was anxious to do my duty as well as I could. The real soldier's duties were a pleasure to me, and like the other légionnaires who daily debated the chances of receiving marching orders, I longed with fantastical impatience for active service.
The Legion always seemed to me to be in a state of feverish impatience, always on the jump, always expecting marching orders. The regiment's traditional fiery military spirit infected even the youngest recruits. When vague rumours of a new rising of the Arabs on the Morocco frontier penetrated to the barracks, or when the Echo d'Oran with the laconic brevity of official telegrams announced new skirmishes in Indo-China, the news spread like wildfire through the Legion's quarters. Everywhere you could see groups of légionnaires, speaking of their hopes of at last receiving marching orders. When an especially exciting report had been spread, they sometimes stood in crowds before the regimental offices, waiting for one of the clerks to rush down the stairs with the news:
"Faites le sac."
Pack your knapsacks! This is the old ominous war-cry that sounds from room to room when the Legion mobilises, the dry business-like password calling the Legion to its military business.
The thirst for adventure, which is an element of the Legion, as inseparable from it as poverty and hard work, always lay in the air.
For the first time I heard the alarm sounded in the middle of night. I jumped up out of my sleep in a fright. "Aux armes!" the bugle sounded from the barrack-yard. The sergeants and corporals rushed through the barracks crying the alarm, "Aux armes!"—To arms!