A Modern Legionary

by John Patrick Le Poer

"All right," she said, "I will get some and give it to you at your own quarters."

I returned, told the Pole that he should soon receive some medicine, and waited for Giulia at the door. Now either the adjutant must have observed all this, or some scoundrel must have told him about it, for just as I turned into the bachelor sergeants' quarters with the drink and Giulia went away again towards the canteen, the adjutant came running up at the top of his speed, crying out: "Halt, halt, sergeant; what have you got there?" I was forced to deliver up the little flask. He uncorked it, smelled, and said:

"Very well, very well, consider yourself a prisoner. Ah, Mademoiselle Giulia," he went on, "what excuse can your lover make now?"

"Go away, Giulia," I said.

"Silence; to your room, rascal!" roared the angry adjutant.

"Good-bye, my well-beloved," said Giulia. "Out of my way, pig" (this to the adjutant). And she walked across the square with the air and tread of an empress.

The adjutant gnashed his teeth and bit his moustache with rage; he hissed rather than said to me:

"You, rascal, shall pay for this, and this payment, understand well, is only the first; others are sure to come afterwards." I turned on my heel and entered my apartment.

The Pole was very sorry, and would, I believe, have told about his part in the affair, but I pointed out, as others also did, that there was no use in his getting into trouble, as by so doing he could not help me in the least. Everyone saw quite plainly that I should certainly be reduced to the rank of corporal, if not lower, and all were, or professed to be, sorry for my misfortune. To cut the tale short, I may as well say at once that I got my choice of resigning my position as sergeant of a section and becoming a mere corporal of a squad or of going before a court-martial. Of course I resigned, for the offence of obtaining liquor at a wrong hour after the previous warning could not be overlooked, and, as likely as not, a court-martial might send me back to the ranks, a thing I had no desire for. The first time I passed the adjutant with the two red chevrons on my sleeve instead of the single gold one he smiled with an unholy joy, but the smile changed to a scowl as he saw the kiss of welcome that I received from Giulia at the door of the canteen.

It was well for all the other squads in the section that I was reduced. They were now treated not worse, certainly, than the rest of the legionaries, but my little squad of sixteen men had to bear the brunt of the adjutant's anger. I was very concerned at this, and told Giulia. She—clever and good girl—at once found out a means of in part compensating them, but she did not tell me, and she strictly warned them not to tell me either. They—poor devils—were only too glad to keep her counsel, and it was by a mere accident that I learned the truth afterwards. Her plan was this: She told the men of my squad that they could come to the canteen with or without money and that they need not be afraid of a refusal on her part to supply them, as far as they could reasonably expect, with drink and tobacco. Now a legionary will stand a good deal of abuse during the day if he knows that brandy and other comforts await him for nothing in the evening; and, moreover, it was evident to all that no one was especially aimed at except me, and that, when No. 7, let us say, of the squad was told that he was a dirty pig, he was merely getting the benefit of remarks that were really meant for me. When the adjutant had done abusing the men one by one he gathered, as it were, all the abuse together and hurled it at my head, and often those rough legionaries, smarting as they were under their own vexations, used to feel for me more than for themselves. I said to them one day after the devil had left the hut, where he had kicked about our equipments, swearing that we did not know the meaning of good order, that I would never report any man for anything: "No matter how bad we may be," I continued, "we are abused and sworn at. We are all punished for the evil we do and the evil that we don't even think of."