"Yes; but you, monsieur le commandant, will wait till all have departed."
"But yes, but yes." And he went to the door and told the men that they were to come in, take their coats and blankets, and leave the hut at once. Afterwards he would dispose of them for the night. He managed well enough by dividing them amongst the neighbouring huts, where the poor, evicted fellows made each man his bed as best he could upon the ground. Then he told the sergeant of the guard that the lights in my hut were not to be taken notice of by the sentries, and went home to bed, proudly happy in the consciousness of having acted kindly towards people, for all of whom—Giulia, of course, excepted—he felt the most supreme contempt when they were not on active service. You must know that in front of the enemy we legionaries were always addressed as "mes enfants," at all other times any ugly name was good enough for us.
Giulia insisted on my staying in bed all next day, and no one said a word about it. In the early forenoon the lieutenant—with whom I got on so well in the march to the cantonment and who was now in charge of the company during the illness of the captain—came and spoke very sympathetically to us both. He said nothing about the lecture read by the commandant to the adjutant, rightly judging that there were many who would be very glad to give us all the news about that. As he was going away he said something to the corporal who was standing near the door. After the officer's departure the sub-officer told me that I might stay in bed another day if I liked. I thanked him, but declined. The fact is, I knew my comrades were anxious to get back to their quarters, as they were sure to be anything but comfortable divided amongst so many squads. Consequently, I told Giulia that evening that I was nearly myself again, and I asked her to bring across a couple of bottles of eau-de-vie, so that we might make some amends to the others for their eviction. Giulia brought more than I had asked for. She carried across from the canteen two bottles of brandy, three of wine, and a couple of pounds of tobacco. When the others saw the bottles and the packages they were more than satisfied; they drank her health that night, and swore often, and with vehemence, that they would all willingly die for her. What children soldiers are, and how easily they are pleased!
After this I had a fairly easy time for a few weeks. But I had become rather reckless now, and all Giulia's powers of persuasion were needed to prevent me from breaking down into a careless, slovenly soldier. What is the good, I often thought, of cleaning equipments when I shall be abused just as much as if they were really dirty? Where is the use of springing smartly at the word of command when I shall be called a lazy rascal and a stupid fool? What matters it whether I am idle or hardworking when I get the same reward every time? Since I am to be abused and punished let me at least deserve the abuse and the punishment, then I shall be more content. But Giulia would not hear of this. She was determined that I should continue to be a clean, careful, active soldier. She had a wonderful fund of hope, and she had one argument that I could not withstand. "Yes, yes, it is hard," she would say; "but remember, when you begin to deserve trouble, I shall begin to deserve it too." Now, though I could easily be reckless on my own account, I could not find it in my heart to be reckless when Giulia was certain to share the consequences along with me. She was too good, too true, too loving to be drawn by me, who loved her so much, into any rashness which would end bitterly for us both—more bitterly, I fancied, for her, who would survive, than for me, whose troubles would soon be over. Nevertheless, I grew more and more morose every day. True, I was never morose in Giulia's society, but in the hut I was not a pleasant companion, and I am afraid that my comrades left me more and more to myself every day. The corporal did not seem to watch me any longer. I fancy he was getting to be a little afraid. He, as well as the rest, saw that it would take very little to make me lose my temper altogether. And when a desperate legionary, his mind full of real—as mine were—or fancied wrongs, does break out, he is more like the Malay who runs amok than the European who strikes a blow or two and then is carried—kicking, striking, biting, and cursing—to the guard-house. Another reason that the corporal had for not interfering with me was this, the other legionaries were not indignant with me for my moroseness and want of good-fellowship. Now, as a rule, the man who keeps aloof from the rest of his squad has a bad time. Men will not allow themselves and their society to be flouted by another not a bit better, not a bit higher, than themselves. In the Legion all are equal—the ex-prince and the ex-pauper, the man of good character and the man of bad. But when the men of a squad see that a comrade is in bad temper with his superiors and recognise that he has reason, then they will not mind aloofness or sharp answers or ugly words. On the contrary, they will sympathise, never knowing when their own turns may come for ill-treatment. So the corporal, seeing that the men were quite satisfied that I should live my life to myself and felt sympathy and not anger on account of my conduct, wisely left me alone. There were many ugly stories current in the Legion of what had been done by men driven to desperation, and, be it well understood, the sub-officer valued his chevrons a good deal less than he valued his life.
I got myself into trouble more than once about this time, but I was never afterwards put en crapaudine. Twice I was buried up to the neck in the ground, or rather once to the waist and once to the neck. This was called putting a man en silo. It was a hard punishment, but not to be compared with the other. The worst of it was that one felt as if heavy weights were pressing him at all points, but this feeling of pressure was nothing compared to the straining and racking of the joints when one was en crapaudine. A good proof of this is that I was never gagged when en silo. I could easily enough stand it without a cry. It is of no account now why I was thus punished. I freely admit that the commandant was quite justified in making me suffer for my offences, but it must be remembered to my credit that there would have been no offences if I had been left alone. Ill-treatment made me act foolishly, that is the first point; I paid for my folly, that is the second; the third is, when a punishment is over the offence that entailed it ought to be forgotten.
I was now, to all intents and purposes, a man apart from his fellows. The other legionaries watched me curiously. They wondered, I fancy, how long I should stand the strain and how the certain result would actually come about. The adjutant was just as tyrannical as ever to the men of the battalion; he distributed his curses and abuse with perfect impartiality, but no one minded now. The officers were the only ones who did not understand, though they, doubtless, had heard of many tragedies in the Legion, yet they seemed to have forgotten all: officers really care only for their own pleasure and comfort, and every one of them, from commandant down to sub-lieutenant, felt quite satisfied so long as there was an appearance of good order and discipline. If I were an officer, I should remember that a troublesome, riotous battalion seldom furnishes materials for a tragedy; a quiet, well-behaved one, where the men speak in drawing-room tones and seem to be always looking out for something, has more elements of danger in it. In the Indian Mutiny it was the good soldier who gave the most trouble and took the biggest share of the beating; he mutinied because his conscience drove him to it, and his conscience would not allow him to surrender. When a bad soldier mutinies, any hound is good enough to bite him, and once bitten, he hands in his gun. To put the matter in a nutshell: the battalion was too good; it was so quiet and calm that any man of observation might see that there was something ugly underneath.
CHAPTER XXI
One day as I was crossing the parade-ground I saw the adjutant stop Giulia, who was coming to meet me, and speak, as I thought, earnestly to her. I knew that he admired her and that a good deal of my troubles arose from her avowed preference for me, but my mind was quite easy on that score. Dozens of men in the battalion would be very glad to replace me in her favour, but all were aware that she was true as steel, and though this knowledge probably made many more envious of my good fortune yet it certainly kept them from annoying Giulia with unavailing protestations of love. Indeed, Giulia and I often laughed together when a legionary after a second or third glass of eau-de-vie looked longingly at her for a moment and then sighed with love and liquor. At first she used playfully to resent my allusions to her conquests, but as soon as she understood my absolute faith in her constancy she entered into the spirit of badinage quite as freely as I. I never jested about the adjutant. When we spoke of him we were both angry—I for my disgrace and punishment, Giulia because at the time she understood better than I did the reason of his severity. Many times she told me that he had spoken in a more than friendly manner to her, but she always added that her answers were not the answers he wished for, and I had often heard from my comrades of scenes at or near the canteen when she spoke her mind openly to him and made him feel that worst of all tortures to a man of sensitive mind—words of utter contempt from the woman he adores. What must have made things worse for the adjutant was that he knew, as the others did, that his repulses were deserved, and the officer was especially punished in this—that the whole battalion rejoiced in his discomfiture, and men repeated over and over again in hut and guard-house and canteen the very expressions with which Giulia had cut him to the heart. I had never questioned her closely about his behaviour and attempts at love-making—I thought of him as an enemy, not as a rival—but when I saw him so deliberately stop Giulia as she was approaching me I resolved to ask her, not out of jealousy, be it well understood, but out of curiosity, what he had to say so important that he laid his hand upon her arm to detain her.