So far as I was concerned, I turned my attention to one of the troopers who had undertaken to look after me. He was a Parisian, a former street arab, and I suspected him of having prepared an apple-pie bed in order to have a laugh at me. He pretended to be fast asleep, although I called him two or three times; but I struck a match and caught him grinning. In order therefore to make him heed me, I went to the foot of his bed and, seizing the iron trestle, determined to bring the whole affair to the floor if he did not get up. This soon aroused him.
"Look here, old chap," he exclaimed, "you don't try any of these 'ere jokes on your seniors, or else you'll smart for it."
"Well, Titi," I replied, "you've got to make my bed over again, so, after all, the joke you wanted to play on me has been wasted, for it only gives you extra trouble."
At first he declined to touch my things, but, as I warned him that if he didn't do it he'd never get another tip from me, he reluctantly set to work. It took me a pretty long time to go to sleep that night; my neighbour snored like a pug dog, and a goodly number of the eighty men who slept in the same room as myself, besides snoring, emitted such an atrocious effluvium that I did not feel able to go to sleep. It takes some time, too, to get accustomed to the noise of stables, and I could hear quite distinctly the chargers below constantly kicking their stalls; at last, however, I dropped to sleep from sheer exhaustion.
[CHAPTER III]
At 5 o'clock in the morning I was aroused by a loud shouting; it was the Corporal of the Week who was passing through the room calling out, "Any sick men here?" The names of the men who want medical attention have to be put down on the Sergeant-major's morning report, on which also figures the morning call, which is merely nominal, as it never takes place in the cavalry. Half an hour later the trumpeters sounded the réveille and immediately the various Corporals told off a certain number of men to go and clean the stables. I was one of those selected. Hastily I donned my stable suit, of coarse canvas, and when I reached the stables, was told off to clean the straw under four horses—my comrade Titi, who had accompanied me, being ordered to show me how to proceed. Neither pitchforks nor shovels are used, the men having to separate with their hands the dry from the wet straw, and having also to pick out with their fingers whatever dung may be mixed with the litter. I scarcely relished this unsavory work, and as I did not consider it likely to improve in any way my military training, I tipped Titi a franc to do it for me, while I went to the canteen to have a cup of coffee and a crust of bread. It may be noted here that before réveille a jug of very thin coffee, with a pretence of sugar added to it, was brought into the rooms, but few of the men cared to touch it. Those who were unable to afford the canteen preferred to break their fast with a glass of water and a slice of bread—not that the charges of the canteen were high, for a cup of coffee (so called) and a roll of bread costs but three halfpence—but there exists an unwritten but inviolable law that no man may take a drink of any kind by himself. Faire suisse is the term used to describe the fact of going to the canteen alone, and this is considered a real crime, to be severely punished by the rest, so that a poor fellow who gets a few francs monthly from his people must always share them with a comrade. It is also a curious fact that, although most men complain of the scarcity of the food supplied to them, few will ever spend in victuals the money they may receive from home—they invariably consume it in drink.
At 6 o'clock the trumpets sounded "Stables," so fetching the bags containing our implements we returned to the stables to groom our chargers. Every man has often two horses to groom—his own charger as well as the horse of any trooper who may be on guard, or otherwise employed.[16] Our chargers had not yet been allotted to us, so I was told to groom a lively little mare, which I afterwards found out enjoyed the reputation of being the most vicious charger of the whole squadron; however, whether it was that I was not afraid of her, or that she instinctively felt that I loved horses, we got on very well together. The grooming lasted for an hour, and towards 7 o'clock the Lieutenant of the Week turned up and gave orders for the horses to be taken to the watering-tanks. As I was leading out the mare I had been grooming I was ordered by the Lieutenant to also lead two other chargers; holding their reins in my right hand, I tried to jump on the bare back of the little mare—she was called "Durance" after the name of a torrent in the South of France, and she well deserved her appellation. The moment I caught hold of her mane to jump on her back she plunged, and, jumping back a few steps, nearly brought her reins over her head. Twice she played me the same trick, and at the same time the other horses, whose reins I held, pulled away from her, but the third time I landed on her back, and although she tried buck-jumping, I easily rode her with the other animals to the watering-tank. When I returned she was lively enough, but it was all play and not vice: and when I jumped off her back the Lieutenant called me: