When we arrived at the depot we were at once divided into small parties, each of which was sent to a company for drill. I was attached to No. 1 Company, and though four others of my comrades came to it with me they did not remain there long. Two of them were Belgians, one an Alsatian, and the fourth a Pole. All spoke French well, and it was very soon seen that they had learned something about drill already in other armies, and, therefore, they were sent almost at once to the battalions on service at the edge of the great desert. Thus it was that I found myself the only member of the detachment in No. 1, and of this I was very glad, for my last experience with them had not been of the most pleasant kind.
And now let me put on record the only complaint I have to make about my life at Saida. On account of my speaking English all agreed that I must be an Englishman, and the Englishman is well hated abroad. Consequently on the drill ground and in the barrack room I was continually addressed by the expressive sobriquet of "English pig." Now "cochon anglais" is not a nice nickname, and though I dared not resent it from the corporals and other sub-officers I made up my mind that from my equals in rank it was not to be endured. There was a big Alsatian in my squad who was most persistent in insulting me, though I had often tried to explain to him that I was neither a pig nor an Englishman. With him, therefore, I resolved to deal, confident that, if I could put a stop to his insolence, the rest would be quiet enough. I determined, as he was my superior in age, strength, weight, and length of arm, that it would be only right to take him unawares and, if possible, finish the business before he could quite understand what I was about. For three or four days after settling this matter in my mind I got no opportunity such as I wished for. Seeing me take the nickname quietly, for I no longer even remonstrated with him, the Alsatian went further than before and raised my anger to boiling point. At last the chance came. As I entered the room one afternoon I noticed lying near the door a rather large billet of wood. The corporal was out, so were most of the men, and those who remained, five or six in number, were lazily lounging in various attitudes about the room. I put aside rifle, belt, and bayonet, for I had just come in from a punishment parade—that is, an extra parade ordered to men for some slight irregularity—and looked straight at the big brute, as if to challenge him.
"Ah, my fine fellow, how do English pigs like punishment parades in this weather?" he began.
"As well," I answered, picking up, carelessly as it were, the billet, "as Alsatian dogs like this." And I brought the heavy block down upon his head with all my strength. The cap, though utterly destroyed, saved his head, but still he was so stupefied by the sudden assault and by the force of the blow that I had time to strike him again and again. The others jumped up quickly and seized me, crying out that the Alsatian was dead. And, indeed, he looked as if he were dead, for his head was covered with blood, and one almost imagined that his brains would protrude through the wounds. However, after some time he came to himself again, and truly no one was better pleased than I, for as I cooled down I began to be fearful of consequences.
When the corporal heard about the affair he told the sergeant, the sergeant went to the captain, and the captain came down to investigate the matter for himself. I told him how I was continually annoyed, and when he asked me why I struck the other when off his guard, I pointed out that to do so gave me the only chance of revenge. He measured us both with his eyes and seemed to agree with me. Anyway, the Alsatian was sent to get his wounds dressed and I was ordered extra drills, extra fatigues, and to remain altogether in barracks for a fortnight.
Now I wondered how I got off so lightly. Well, in the Foreign Legion a fight between men of the same squad is not considered half so serious as one between men belonging to different squads, just as no one minds so much about a fight between brothers as about one between members of separate families. If a soldier of No. 1 squad beats a soldier of No. 2 all the men of No. 2 will look for revenge, and all the men of No. 1 will know that, and, therefore, at any moment thirty or more men may be, to use an expressive phrase, "into" one another with Nature's weapons and anything lying handy that will do a man damage. Sometimes when the quarrel is more serious than usual—as, for instance, when it is about women—bayonets may be used, but, indeed, the soldier very seldom has recourse to his accustomed weapons in a fight with comrades. But if a dispute arises between a battalion of zephyrs and another of the Foreign Legion there is but one way of restoring order—call out the cavalry and the guns.
As the Alsatian and I belonged to the same squad the captain contented himself with punishing me slightly and warning us both against a renewal of the quarrel. The story went around, and I don't believe I was called an English pig ever afterwards except by an Irishman or an Irish-American, who, of course, spoke only in jest.
Our company consisted of from 160 to 200 men. Sometimes it was strong for a week after the arrival of a number of recruits, then again it would go down as a squad or two departed for the regiment. My squad varied, I think, from ten to seventeen, and, taking us all round, we weren't very bad, as soldiers go. What language did we speak? French on the drill ground and on duty and in reply to superior officers; amongst ourselves a Lingua Franca, made up chiefly of French, especially the Argot, but with a plentiful admixture of German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and other languages, including in some squads even Russian, Turkish, and Arabic. What I say now refers not merely to the depot but to the Foreign Legion in general: every battalion, every company, I might almost say every squad, had its own peculiarity of idiom; Sapristi and Parbleu gave place often to Caramba, Diavolo, and Mein Gott. In fact, before I was six months in the Legion I could swear fluently in every European language except English; the only English curse they taught me was Goddam.
The sous-officiers were pretty strict with us in the depot, but the punishments were not too severe. The favourite one was to keep you altogether in the barrack and compel you to sleep during the night in your ordinary uniform on a plank bed in the guard room. That was the worst of it, in the day no one minded the confinement to barracks—for what was the use in wandering about a dirty town if one had no money in his pocket, and our pay did not last long?—but in the night the plank bed was not an ideal resting-place. I did not get into much trouble, the row with the Alsatian was my chief offence, and what kept me right was the dread of sleeping in the guard room at night.
We drilled every day except Sunday, but there is no use in telling about that, as drill is the same all the world over. Our drill instructors were certainly eloquent—all had copious vocabularies—and the wealth of abuse and cursing that any of them could expend in an hour's work was, indeed, extraordinary. While I was unable to fully understand I felt angry; by the time I understood every word I was too philosophical to care. Moreover, I am sorry to have to say that I was rapidly acquiring a fairly extensive vocabulary of my own, and every time I heard a curse directed at myself I thought one for the benefit of the drill instructor's soul. It's a tradition in every army just as it is in every navy, fighting and mercantile, that nothing can be got out of men without bad language, and I do believe that there is a good deal of truth in the tradition. One would fancy that skippers and sergeants wish to familiarise their men with the names at least of the lower regions and their ruler, in the firm belief that the men will at some time make the acquaintance of both. That's as it may be; at anyrate we learned a good deal more than our drill from our instructors.