A Modern Legionary

by John Patrick Le Poer

"Yes, sir."

"Do you think that I have nothing to do except to listen to complaints against you?" Again he spoke very quietly.

"No, sir."

"Then why are you here almost every day?"

"I cannot avoid it, sir."

"Well, well, it is necessary that you learn a lesson. Four hours en crapaudine. Remember, remember well, not to appear here again soon."

Now I have already described this punishment, and have said something about its effects, as I heard about them from others, and as I saw men when they were put in it, but I was now for the first time to feel them for myself. The adjutant did a very mean thing, and many men who would not mind seeing me en crapaudine, not through any dislike of me but simply because they were used to the sight of prisoners so placed, severely blamed him for it, and blamed him the more severely as they felt that this new system of punishment might become the custom of the battalion. Everyone feared for himself, one may say.

Now it was usual to keep a soldier sentenced to this discipline in the guard-hut until the great heat of the day had passed and then to put him in a certain portion of the parade-ground trussed up like a dead fowl. The adjutant, however, did not allow this to be done with me. He came down to the guard-hut a little before noon, had me taken from the cells to the place of punishment, and there, my ankles being fastened together and my hands manacled behind my back, I was forced upon my knees, my body pressed back until the centres of both pairs of irons were joined as closely together as possible, and so every joint of my body put upon the rack. But this was not all. When I was safely en crapaudine the brute knocked my kepi off with his stick, and so I was left in a posture of agony, exposed with bare head to all the torturing rays of an African sun. Now one can understand why my comrades were indignant; now one can see why they dreaded punishment in the noonday hours, for even if the kepi were left on a man's head, he would in all likelihood cast it off by his own struggles, and be sure, be very sure, that no one would dare to approach to replace it. It was replaced for me, I grant, and replaced more than once, and other things were done that helped me in some sort to bear my punishment, but Giulia was not amenable to military law as we others were, and even the adjutant dared not fall out openly with her, for all Frenchmen, including even the commandant, naturally side with the woman in a quarrel, especially when the woman is figlia del reggimento.

I was not long en crapaudine before I realised to the full the awful agony that men endure when they are truly and literally on the rack. Pains were quickly felt by me at the knees and at the ankles and at the wrists. My hands, forced backwards into an unnatural position, dragged heavily upon my neck, and the pain, beginning there, travelled down gradually to the shoulder-joints, so that from neck to ankles there was not a joint without its share of torment. Soon afterwards the small of my back became involved in the general dislocation, and then it seemed to me as if a heavy weight had been placed upon my abdomen and was squeezing the lower part of my body out of all proportion. Then a tight band, as it were, was fastened on my chest; I seemed to feel my ribs crushed in upon my heart, my breath came and went quickly, and, to complete the agony, my forehead began to feel constricted, and shooting pains ran from temple to temple, as if some demon from the lower regions were thrusting and thrusting and thrusting again a red-hot knife through my brain. At this time I must have begun to cry out, or at least to groan, for I was suddenly aware of a rough hand grasping me by the head and another pulling down my underjaw, some hard substance was shoved into my mouth, and in spite of all the pain that I was enduring my senses for a moment came back fully to me. I knew that I was gagged and that the first part of my punishment was over, for men generally drift into insensibility when the gag is applied; there will be an occasional lifting of the eyelids, a spasmodic shaking of the head, and that is all.

I learned afterwards that Giulia had replaced my kepi more than once, and had even bathed my temples and forehead with cold water, but she was not allowed to remove the gag, though she begged and prayed that it might be taken away. The adjutant had wisdom enough to keep away; it was well known that Giulia, for her own protection in so strange a society, so remote too from civilisation, always carried a knife about her person, and very often a dainty little five-chambered revolver that would certainly kill at near range. But for all that he saw that I was bound and gagged to the last minute of the four hours, and the sergeant of the guard, as well as the sentry who stood near, knew very well the consequences of yielding to Giulia's prayers and entreaties.