Then he went over to Rassedin and asked him if he thought that Rader and the other five poumpistes would get away. Rassedin shook his head and laughed, making with his thumb and forefinger that counting gesture which means paying all the world over.
"No money," he said dryly.
The other veterans too thought that Rader and the other five were not the sort of men who would succeed in surmounting the difficulties of a flight unprovided with money.
The flight of the six comrades was an inexhaustible topic of conversation in the company. Smith used to spin one yarn after another of mad bids for freedom. Two of these histories I shall never forget.
While Smith was in the second battalion at Saida, there were two brothers in his company, two Englishmen of good birth. The final and maddest freak of their mad lives landed them in the Legion. When their family learnt that they were wearing the Legion's uniform, they did all they could to procure their freedom. In vain! Petitions to the French Secretary of War were of no avail, and the English Consul in Algiers naturally refused to intervene. Finally the two brothers were sent a large sum of money and they tried their luck at deserting. They were no farther than Saida station when they were arrested and marched back to prison.
As soon as they were free again they made a second attempt at flight and got as far as Oran. But their descriptions had been telegraphed there and they were arrested as they were going on board the steamer. This time they were sent for six months to the penal battalion.
The poor devils must have written despairing letters home. Their relations were determined to get them free at any price. With an English merchant as go-between, they bribed a Levantine, who hired an automobile and waited days and days by Saida, in the neighbourhood where the convicts had to work. After long delay the brothers succeeded in escaping at night from their tent. They reached the appointed rendezvous in safety, found the Levantine with his motor waiting for them, and started off as quickly as the sand would allow. The automobile, however, had attracted notice in Saida, and the military authorities came at once on the idea that these dauntless deserters had hit on the unusual method of flight by motor-car. Telegrams flew from station to station, and the Arab police barricaded a narrow part of the road a little north of Sidi-bel-Abbès, which passes at this point through a rocky part of the country, absolutely impassable for vehicles.
A short time afterwards the motor came up. The runaways took no notice of the warnings of the gendarmes who rode to meet them, and crashed at full speed into the pile of stones. The motor was overturned, the two deserters being killed immediately. The Levantine was seriously injured and brought into the hospital at Sidi-bel-Abbès, where he died a few days later.
The other story is a really sad one.
An Austrian engineer had, as a young man, for some reason or other enlisted in the Foreign Legion. After a while he managed to escape and worked his way home to Austria again. He must have been a clever fellow, for he soon gained a distinguished position in his profession. Fortune smiled upon him. He made a notable invention, which made him a wealthy man. Ambition led him to send the machine he had invented to the World's Exhibition in Paris. In the distinguished engineer nobody would recognise the deserter from the Foreign Legion—at least so he thought. But cruel fate willed otherwise. Standing by his machine at the exhibition he was recognised by an officer from his company who was just then on leave in Paris.