A Modern Legionary

by John Patrick Le Poer

After the death of her husband the widow opened a small shop, in which she sold wine, tobacco, and other things that soldiers spend their money on. The officers of the battalion stocked this for her, but in a short time she was able to pay them back, and she insisted on their accepting the money though they did not at all desire repayment. The regimental convoys were allowed to bring her goods as she required them, and the legionaries of her dead husband's battalion loyally spent most of their scanty pay in her canteen.

Whenever anyone received money from friends or relations in Europe her stock would be all cleared off at once, and so by the exercise of a little frugality she was able gradually to put by some money for the little daughter whom she idolised. At the time when I came to the battalion this girl was about fifteen years of age, slight, graceful, lively, bright-eyed, the pet of the battalion. Everyone jested freely with her, she jested freely with everybody, but no one ever thought of saying anything which her mother, a model of virtue, would not like to hear.

I had been but two or three days in my new quarters when an alarm of fire was raised one night, and we all turned out promptly as the cry went around. There was no danger for us, as the huts were one-storeyed and did not contain more than a squad each, but there might be some for the officers, whose quarters were more elaborate, and who, of course, were more isolated. A dozen or a score of men in a hut will all get clear, because some at least will be aroused, and these can pull out their suffocating comrades; a single officer may be smothered in his bed before even the watchful sentry realises the outbreak. When I came out of my quarters, in shirt and drawers, I glanced around, and saw at once that all the cantonment was safe. Then I heard a cry from the direction of the main guard-house that the village was on fire, but this was afterwards proved to be false. I flung on my clothes hurriedly and ran to the guard-house, for I had no assigned place on the parade that was now rapidly forming on the parade-ground, not being sergeant-major of any company, and asked the sergeant of the guard where the fire was.

"Madame's canteen," he replied; "twenty or thirty men have already gone to put it out."

"May I go to help?" (Of course, though I was of higher rank, he was the man in charge of the guard, and could prevent me, if he wished, from going out.)

"Certainly, my sergeant-major."

"Thanks, comrade, thanks." And I ran out and went to the widow's canteen. There I found the whole a mass of flames, and I saw at a glance that there was no hope of saving even the smallest portion of the house or its contents, especially as there was a sad lack of water. I asked a man if the woman and the girl had been saved. He told me that the girl had discovered the fire and awakened her mother, that both had made good their escape, and that then the widow had run back to recover her little store of money, the hiding-place of which no one else knew. "Then," he went on, "the daughter tried to go into the blazing house to bring back her mother, but she was forcibly prevented by some soldiers, and one or two of the legionaries who tried to enter were driven back, severely burned, by the fire and smoke." The flames, indeed, were terrible, all the wine barrels and spirit casks were blazing fiercely; there was no hope of life for anyone in such a hell. The poor widow fell a victim to her desire to regain for her daughter the money she had hoarded with so much anxious care, and nothing remained of her except a few charred bones, which were reverently gathered up and decently interred on the morrow. As for the money, it must have been chiefly in paper, for very little metal could be found in the ashes, and so the poor daughter was left completely alone in the world, without relations, at least as far as she knew, without means, and with only the friendship and the pity of the battalion to look to for aid.

The Italian girl was taken charge of by a sergeant's wife—one of those few noble women, few, I mean, comparatively speaking, who will go anywhere with their husbands, and who furnish in the most abandoned communities examples of unselfish heroism and exalted virtue, which make even men whose knowledge of the sex is confined to its most vicious members have some respect for purity and some doubts as to their favourite axiom: A man may be good, but a woman cannot be. The officers proposed that she should continue as cantinière in place of her mother, and generously offered to put her in a position to do so. As for us sub-officers and simple soldiers, our duty was plain: as soon as she was in a new home and shop, to go there, and there only, with the constant copper, the occasional silver, the God-sent gold. She knew this, the officers knew it; we made no resolutions; and said scarcely anything about the matter amongst ourselves, but all understood that it would be bad for the legionary who bought his wine or brandy elsewhere.

The commandant sent for the four sergeant-majors of the companies and for me, the supernumerary. He asked us how much it would cost to erect a new house. We said that it would cost nothing; the soldiers would build one in their spare time.

"Very well, my friends, very well. How much will it cost to put in a new supply."