"Say, ma honey, yew talk U.S. any?" queried a gigantic Negro, in the uniform of the Legion (presumably recruited in France as a free American citizen of Anglo-Saxon speech), addressing himself to the tall Englishman. "Youse ain't Dago, nor Dutchie, nor French. Cough it up, Bo, right hyar ef youse U.S."
The eyes of the young Englishman narrowed slightly, and his naturally haughty expression appeared to deepen toward one of contempt and disgust. Otherwise he took no notice of the Negro, nor of his question.
Remarking, "Some poah white trash," the Negro turned to the next man with the same query.
Cries in various tongues, such as "Anybody from Spain?" "Anyone from Vienna?" "Any Switzers about?" and similar attempts by the crowding, jostling Legionaries to discover a compatriot, and possibly a "towny," evoked gleams and glances of interest from the haggard, wretched eyes of the "blues," and, occasionally, answering cries from their grim and grimy lips.
A swaggering, strutting Sergeant emerged from the neighbouring regimental offices, roared "Garde à vous," brought the recruits to attention, and called the roll. As prophesied by Legionary John Bull, the whole draft was assigned to the Seventh Company, recently depleted by the desertion, en masse, of a cafard-smitten German escouade, or section, who had gone "on pump," merely to die in the desert at the hands of the Arabs--several horribly tortured, all horribly mangled.
Having called the roll, this Sergeant, not strictly following the example of the Sergeant of the Guard, looked the draft over more in anger than in sorrow.
"Oh, Name of the Name of Beautiful Beelzebub," bawled he, "but what have we here? To drill such worm-casts! Quel métier! Quel chien d'un métier! Stand up, stand up, oh sons of Arab mothers and pariah dogs," and then, feigning sudden and unconquerable sickness, he turned upon the Corporal in charge with a roar of--
"March these sacred pigs to their accursed sties."
As the heterogeneous gang stepped off at the word of command, "En avant. Marche!" toward the Quartermaster's store of the Seventh Company, it was clear to the experienced eye that the great majority were "Back to the army again," and were either deserters, or men who had already put in their military service in the armies of their own countries.
In the store-room they were endowed by the Fourrier-Sergent, to the accompaniment of torrential profanity, with white fatigue-uniforms, night-caps, rough shirts, harsh towels, and scraps of soap. From the store-room the squad was "personally conducted" by another, and even more terrible, Sergeant to a washing-shed beyond the drill-ground, and bidden to soap and scour itself, and then stand beneath the primitive shower-baths until purged and clean as never before in its unspeakable life.