When the other prisoners returned for their dinner, they were much astonished to find a Volontaire as their companion. Most of them were undergoing prison for having tiré une bordée (having been absent without leave during five days, and having remained away up to the very last limit they could reach without being proclaimed deserters). These men were thoroughly bad characters, and very different from Titi and Piatte, who were mere dare-devils; for Titi himself, though he had been in prison several times before he joined the regiment, had never been convicted for anything worse than street broils. The awful life of immorality he had led before coming to the regiment was due chiefly to the surroundings among which he had been brought up, but notwithstanding his failings, the fellow would never have committed a theft, and I would not have hesitated to trust him with any amount of money. My present prison companions, however, were of a very different type. None of them, it is true, had been convicted before joining the army, but I soon gathered from their conversation that it was through sheer luck that they had escaped so far. Of course, as I was a common trooper like them, and in prison, they spoke quite openly of their past life before me, and even bragged of their misdeeds pour m'épater. One of them, the fellow who had received so severe a punishment from his comrades when he was thrashed and tossed in a blanket in the riding-school, had never ceased to speak of the treatment he had received, and he used to swear that if, when his time was out, he ever came across one of his assailants, he would put a knife into him.
While we were eating our food he returned once more to the subject, and when I told him not to brag so much about what he would do, he got quite indignant.
"You don't believe me, old chap," he exclaimed; "why, don't imagine that it would be the first time! Many are the times when I have chouriné (stabbed) a bloke. Me and two others we were for a long time in les boulevards extérieurs (a part of Paris which at that time was still most dangerous), and a pretty good haul we sometimes made. I remember once an old woman was going home late at night—we knew her well—she owned a good lot of property, and she had been to collect her rents that day. One of us followed her the whole day, and in the evening he came to tell us that she had gone to dinner with her daughter. You bet, we kept a look-out for her. At ten o'clock, sure enough, there she comes. The sergots had just turned up a side-street to make their rounds, and we knew that the coast would be clear for at least a quarter of an hour. We hid in a doorway, and as she passed us Bibi le Mufle jumps on her from behind, while the other chap who was with me lands her one in the mouth. We laid her on the ground, and I was searching her pocket when she begins to kick up the devil's own row, and shouts 'Murder! Police!' I couldn't find anything in her pockets, and just then a bloke who had heard her giving tongue comes along, and he begins shouting 'Police! Murder!' 'Oh,' I says, 'I'll soon give him "Murder."' What does a bloke deserve who comes and interferes with gentlemen at their business? So I rush at him and I soon stopped his howling with a jab from my Eustace (slang word used for big knife). The others, who were busy searching the old woman, never noticed the police who had come round, and although I shouted to warn them that 'les pantes' (the police) were coming, they couldn't make tracks in time. Bibi le Mufle tried to run away, but unfortunately he fell over my bloke, and they collared him there. They accused him of having done for the chap, but he swore that it wasn't true. The old woman recovered, and so did the bloke, and you'd never guess what that man did. He swore that it was Bibi le Mufle who had stabbed him. And the old woman, who was stupid-like when she recovered, swore that only two chaps had attacked her. The others behaved like bricks, they never gave me away, and so I got up a collection to get them a good counsel, and they only got three years; so you see, old chap, I am not afraid to use my knife, and I swear to God that some day or other I'll have the life of one of them chaps who knocked me about as they have, and, what's more, he concluded, j'en ai soupé du régiment (I am sick of the regiment), and I mean to make a clean bolt of it the moment I get out of prison."
It will be seen that my prison companions were not very desirable acquaintances.
When I went to the medical visit the following morning, the doctor took me apart, and asked me to tell him exactly what I had done to be treated with such extreme severity. I began to tell him the same story as I had told my Captain, but he stopped me.
"I know," he said, "that you are humbugging me. I heard part of the truth from your Sergeant-major, and you may trust to my word that whatever you tell me will go no further."
I therefore told him exactly what had happened, and the part Sergeant de Cormet had played.
The doctor replied that it looked as if my Sergeant meant to drive me to do something desperate, and he added that he was determined to put a stop to it. He had already given special orders excusing me from fatigue duty and punishment drill, and at my request he also ordered that an extra blanket should be given me. He added that he was disgusted at the way in which I was being treated, that my constitution was being ruined by the harsh treatment I was subjected to, and that he considered that I was unfit for service under such conditions.
When I returned to prison my fellow prisoners were doing punishment drill in the barrack-yard, and I felt glad to be rid of their company for the time being. I was busy all day translating Conway's book, and the time passed almost pleasantly, as I had at least nobody to bully me. The following day was Sunday, and my fellow prisoners were only taken out in the morning, so that their society was inflicted upon me the whole day. De Lanoy, who was on guard that day, came to pay me a visit, and took me into the corridor leading into the prison to have a chat with me. I heard some startling news from him—how two Sergeants who had just re-enlisted and received their premium of £24 had deserted, as also had two or three troopers. He brought me a novel, and advised me to cut off the strings of the binding and to hide the bulk of it inside a loaf of bread, keeping out only a dozen pages at a time, so that in case the Captain of the Week should visit the prison I could hide these pages inside my shirt, and should they be discovered by the officer I could say that it was waste paper. His advice proved excellent, as that very afternoon the Major came to visit the prison. He inquired what all the books I had were, and I replied that they were the regulation books we had to study, and that I had been allowed to bring them into prison so as not to waste my time. I had carefully hidden in a dark corner Conway's little book and inserted the pages of my translation into my blotting-pad, so that I was not found out. The Major felt me all over, and made me produce the paper inside my shirt, but seeing only a few loose leaves he did not take any more notice of it.