A Modern Legionary

by John Patrick Le Poer

I could not speak to Giulia that day about this, as very soon after the adjutant had stopped her on the parade-ground I was sent on some duty or other that kept me busy until the canteen was opened, and then there was no chance of private conversation. Next day was Sunday, and I then could be with her for at least a couple of hours, so that I did not mind the delay. While I was in the canteen that Saturday evening, drinking a glass of wine with a couple of Alsatians, I asked Giulia to meet me at the main gate on the following day. She, of course, consented; my asking was only a matter of form, a compliment to the girl. She told me that she would bring a flask of wine and that she would also have a packet of cigarettes and a few cigars.

"Why do you tell me that, Giulia?" I asked. "When you bring me any present I accept and thank you, but you know I want nothing but your comradeship and your love."

"I know well," she replied; "but I want you to come out of the cantonment with me to-morrow. I want to tell you many things, and we shall be away for a long time. If I am not back in time to open the canteen the sergeant's wife will open it for the soldiers. But you and I, we must talk long and earnestly to-morrow. Confide in me as I confide in you. I am true—I shall always be so—and you, I know, will be true as well."

To this I could answer nothing except that I loved her better than my life; that I trusted her more than any man had ever trusted woman; and that I was her own, her very own, for ever.

When we met next day at the main-guard Giulia, as she had promised, had a little parcel that made the sergeant of the guard, the sentry on duty, and the other legionaries lounging about, consider me a happy man in spite of all my misfortunes. I could see that, and I own it gave me pleasure. The lowest, as well as the highest, desires to inspire envy in the hearts of others. So long as they think him especially favoured, the sorrows and troubles, which he alone knows of and feels, seem to diminish, even almost to disappear. But I had more than the envy of my comrades to console me; Giulia, happy and smiling, came towards me as I approached, and the sight of her happiness at meeting me was more than enough to make me forget all my disgrace, all my punishment, the hard words which came as regularly as the bugle went for parade, the extra toil that I was condemned to as the tyrant's enemy, and all the incidental annoyances that were sure to come to one whom his fellows had already named "Pas de chance." Yes; that, as I now remember it, was the last of the happy moments. It seemed as if the gods were giving us an overtaste of happiness before the time of anger, strife, and utter wretchedness opened on our lives.

We passed out together through the gate, Giulia in her smartest dress, and I in the regulation Sunday attire, with belt and bayonet and gloves. In Europe people put on silk hats and frock coats on Sundays; we of the Legion merely wore gloves and bayonets, but even with these small additions to our usual costume we felt extra dressed. It was a warm day—that is, warm even for Algeria—and we walked rather slowly along. Once we passed through the gate I took the little parcel from Giulia, saying, with a happy smile: "I am robbing you ma belle."

"You cannot rob me of anything," she replied, "since all I have is yours."

Then I kissed her, forgetting all about the legionaries of the guard who were lounging about the gate. How they must have envied me, my good comrades.

We did not go far from the cantonment, merely about a quarter of a mile, to a place where we had spent many a pleasant hour together on former Sundays. It was not an ideal resting-place. It was certainly not a meadow pied with daisies, with a murmuring rivulet at hand, but there really was a little shelter, for a fairly big rock overhung the spot, and in the lee of this one could somewhat escape the fierce heat of the sun. None of the other soldiers came near it on Sundays. They would, of course, have no hesitation in disturbing me, but Giulia the imperious, Giulia who could refuse the blessed liquor even to a rich man if she wished, was not to be offended. A couple of legionaries, a Spaniard and a Greek, had on one occasion posted themselves in a position whence they could watch our love-making, and had carried back a report to their comrades that Giulia and me were not so much in love as people thought, and it was only two days afterwards, when they entered the canteen together and were sternly ordered out of it, that they found out that we had discovered them and would not provide amusement for spies. The other soldiers had no sympathy with either Greek or Spaniard, and so the corps could boast, as I told them one day, of at least two men who did not drink. It is all very well to be a teetotaller from choice, but to be one from necessity is a very different thing, especially to a soldier. And the lesson Giulia taught by refusing even a glass of vin ordinaire to the precious pair made all the rest desirous of leaving us our chosen resting-place to ourselves.