"Oh, rather. I'm as keen as mustard," replied Rupert, "and I was utterly fed up with peace-soldiering and poodle-faking. I have done Sandhurst and had a turn as a trooper in a crack cavalry corps. I wanted to have a look-in at the North-west Frontier Police in Canada after this, and then the Cape Mounted Rifles. I shan't mind the hardships and monotony here if I can get some active service, and feel I am learning something. I have a few thousand francs, too, at the Crédit Lyonnais, so I shan't have to bear the poverty cross."
"A few thousand francs, my dear chap!" observed John Bull, smiling. "Croesus I A few thousand francs will give you a few hundred fair-weather friends, relief from a few hundred disagreeable corvées, and duties; give you wine, tobacco, food, medicine, books, distractions--almost anything but escape from the Legion's military duties as distinguished from the menial. There is nowhere in the world where money makes so much difference as in the Legion--simply because nowhere is it so rare. If among the blind the one-eyed is king, among Legionaries he who has a franc is a bloated plutocrat. Where else in the world is tenpence the equivalent of the daily wages of twenty men--twenty soldier-labourers? Yes, a few thousand francs will greatly alleviate your lot in the Legion, or expedite your departure when you've had enough--for it's quite hopeless to desert without mufti and money."
"I'll leave some in the bank then, against the time I feel I've had enough.... By the way, if you or your friend--er--Mr. Bronco at any time.... If I could be of service ... financially..." and he coloured uncomfortably.
To offer money to this grave, handsome gentleman of refined speech and manners was like tipping an Ambassador, or offering the "price of a pot" to your Colonel, or your Grandfather.
"What do you mean by corvée and the Legion's menial duties, and soldier-labourers?" he continued hurriedly to change the subject.
"Yesterday," replied Sir Montague Merline coolly, "I was told off as one of a fatigue-party to clean the congested open sewers of the native gaol of Sidi-bel-Abbès. While I and my brothers-in-arms (some of whom had fought for France, like myself, in Tonkin, Senegal, Madagascar, and the Sahara) did the foulest work conceivable, manacled Negro and Arab criminals jeered at us, and bade us strive to give them satisfaction. Having been in India, you'll appreciate the situation. Natives watching white 'sweepers' labouring on their behalf."
"One can hardly believe it," ejaculated Rupert, and his face froze with horror and indignation.
"Yes," continued the other. "I reflected on the dignity of labour, and remembered the beautiful words of John Bright, or John Bunyan, or some other Johnnie about, 'Who sweeps a room as unto God, makes himself and the action fine.' I certainly made myself very dirty.... The Legionaries are the labourers, scavengers, gardeners, builders, road-makers, street-cleaners, and general coolies of any place in which they are stationed. They are drafted to the barracks of the Spahis and Turcos--the Native Cavalry and Infantry--to do jobs that the Spahis and Turcos would rather die than touch; and, of course, they're employed for every kind of work to which Government would never dream of setting French regulars. I have myself worked (for a ha'penny a day) at wheeling clay, breaking stones, sawing logs, digging, carrying bricks, hauling trucks, shovelling sand, felling trees, weeding gardens, sweeping streets, grave-digging, and every kind of unskilled manual corvée you can think of--in addition, of course, to the daily routine-work and military training of a soldier of the Legion--which is three times as arduous as that of any other soldier in the world."
"Sa--a--ay, John," drawled the Bucking Bronco, rousing himself at last from the deep brooding reverie into which he had plunged in search of mental images and memories of Carmelita, "give yure noo soul-affinity the other side o' the medal likewise, or yew'll push him off the water-waggon into the absinthe-barrel."
"Well," continued John Bull, "you can honestly say you belong to the most famous, most reckless, most courageous regiment in the world; to the regiment that has fought more battles, won more battles, lost more men and gained more honours, than any in the whole history of war. You belong to the Legion that never retreats, that dies--and of whose deaths no record is kept.... It is the last of the real Mercenaries, the Soldiers of Fortune, and if France sent it to-morrow to such a task that five thousand men were wastefully and vainly killed, not a question would be asked in the Chamber, nor the Press: nothing would be said, nothing known outside the War Department. We exist to die for France in the desert, the swamp, or the jungle, by bullet or disease--in Algeria, Morocco, Sahara, the Soudan, West Africa, Madagascar, and Cochin China--in doing what her regular French and Native troops neither could nor would do. We are here to die, and it's the duty of our officers to kill us--more or less usefully. To kill us for France, working or fighting...."