Corporal Jacques of the Foreign Legion

by H. De Vere Stacpoole

"This is a fool's talk," replied the other; "any fool can die. Come, I will stand you a bottle. There's more sense in a bottle than in many a man's skull. Come, I'll pay."

But Raboustel was not in the humour for drink, and said so and departed on his way.

He went to bed, but he did not sleep that night. He lay awake, listening to the snoring of the others, and their muttered conversation sometimes as they talked aloud in their sleep.

Légionnaires sleep soundly, but they sometimes have dreams that even the soundest sleep cannot smother. Dreams of France, of England, of the wastes of Russia, of days departed and faces never to be seen again.

Raboustel, lying on his back, watched the night pass and the stars moving across the blue-black luminous sky disclosed by the window space opposite to him.

Then something brilliant came slowly sailing into view, it was the crescent of the new moon.

The new moon is the most lovely of new-born things, especially when seen in the night sky of Algeria. Raboustel watched it pass, scarcely heeding it. He was thinking out a plan.

Next day at six o'clock he departed as usual with the others to the town.

Jacques, who had kept his eye on him all day, walked with him as far as the town and then left him. Jacques, who had a good deal of wisdom of his own, did not refer to the subject of the girl. He judged that if Raboustel had made up his mind to run away with her, nothing would stop him from making the attempt, and he considered that if Raboustel had given up the idea it would be an unfriendly thing to make him talk of it. Jacques was a good deal of a gentleman, though he had knifed several men in his time.

When he returned to barracks that night he looked about for his friend. He had not yet come back. Then Jacques, instead of going to the canteen, took his place near the sentry at the barrack gate and watched the late arrivals coming in. The men came in twos and threes, singing, skylarking, some silent and moody, the last of them flushed with running, but none of them drunk. Drunkenness is not common in the Legion, owing to the scarcity of money and the drastic nature of the punishment.