"I believe you have told me the truth," he said. And I knew well that he knew it, for all the time that I was speaking he kept his keen eyes fixed upon mine, and they seemed to read me through and through.
The Belgian and I were almost immediately relieved from arrest, but my opponent received strict orders to stay in the centre of the squad while marching, so that as little chance as possible might be given to the curious to note his bruises. He was furthermore told that for his own sake he had better tell anyone in authority who might chance to make inquiries that he had been suddenly, and when off his guard, assaulted by a drunken man at a wayside railway station. He afterwards did tell this tale when interrogated by an officer, and, as we others corroborated his statement, he escaped all punishment, and so did I. All the same, the sneers and whisperings of my companions during the remainder of the journey were at least as painful to me as his injuries were to the Belgian. In fact, I was more than boycotted by all, and the fact that none of my comrades would associate with me in even the slightest degree was gall and wormwood to the mind of a sensitive youth. How I wished that the first sergeant had not been so kind and the second so sparing of abuse to me. I was glad that in the depot for recruits I was altogether separated from the rest, and I may add now that, when I met some of them afterwards in the East, they seemed to have forgotten all the little annoyances of our first acquaintance.
I wish to say but little now about the rest of the way. The chief thing that remains in my memory is the scene aboard the transport that carried us from Marseilles to Oran. It was so striking that I fancy I shall never forget it.
There were troops of all arms aboard. I need not describe the party I was with, as I have said enough about it already, and of most of the others I can only recall that the various uniforms, the different numbers on the caps, all impressed me with the idea that I belonged to one of the great armies of the world. Having been, as I have already mentioned, brought up in a garrison town I at once noticed distinctions which another might pass over as trivial. I saw, for instance, that all the soldiers of the line did not belong to the same regiment in spite of the strong likeness the various corps showed to one another, and I knew that the same held true of the chasseurs and zouaves. I admired the way in which disorder was reduced to order; the steady composure of those who had no work to do, which contrasted so much with the quick movement and tireless exertion of the men told off for fatigue; the sharp eyes and short, clear orders of the sergeants; and, above all, the calm, assured air of authority of the officer who superintended the embarkation.
While I was noting all this my glance fell on a party of men, about fifty in number, wearing the usual blue tunic and red trousers, who had no mark or number in their caps. Now the Frenchmen of the line had each the number of his regiment on the front of the kepi, and we of the Foreign Legion had grenades on ours. Moreover, these men were set apart from all the rest and were guarded by a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets. The men seemed sullen and careless of their personal appearance, and when a Frenchman forgets his neatness you may be sure that he has already forgotten his self-respect. Curiosity made me apply for information to the corporal over my squad, and he told me that these were men who for their offences in regiments stationed in France were now being transferred to disciplinary battalions in Algeria, where they would forfeit, practically, all a soldier's privileges and be treated more like convicts than recruits. I at once remembered what the sergeant whose acquaintance I had first made had said about the zephyrs, the men that could not be reclaimed. I saw them often afterwards, and, though in most of the battalions they are not very bad and are treated fairly enough, in others which contain the incorrigible ones the officers and sub-officers have to go armed with revolvers, and the giving out of cartridges, when it can't be helped, is looked upon as the sure forerunner of a murder. Figure to yourself what a hated warder's life would be worth if the convicts in Dartmoor had rifles and bayonets and if the governor had occasionally to serve out packets of cartridges, it being well understood that all—governor, warders, and convicts—are supposed to be transferred to, let us say, Fashoda, where there is now and then a chance of a Baggara raid.
I don't know much about the voyage across the Mediterranean as I was almost, but not quite, sea-sick. It has always been so with me, the gentlest sea plays havoc with my stomach. We got into Oran at about six o'clock in the evening, and our party at once disembarked. We were met on the quay by a sergeant of the Foreign Legion, who showed us the way to a barrack, where we were formally handed over to his control. That night we stayed in the barrack, and I suffered a little annoyance from my comrades, from all of whom I was separated next day, when we were transferred to our depot at a place called Saida. I do not know whether this is to-day the depot for the Foreign Legion or not, as I heard men say that an intention existed on the part of the military authorities to place it farther south. Here I spent some time learning drill, discipline, and all the duties of a soldier, and this was the hardest period of my military life, for my knowledge of French had to be considerably increased before I could quite grasp the meaning of an order, and very often I was abused by a corporal for laziness when I had the best will in the world to do what I was told, if I could only understand it.
CHAPTER III