The Wages of Virtue

by Percival Christopher Wren

How he would love a little girl of hers, if she were very, very like her--and how he would hate a boy if he were like Huntingten. No--not hate the boy--hate the idea of her having a boy who was like Huntingten. But how she would love the boy....

What would he not give to see her! Unseen himself, of course. He hoped he would not get cafard again, when next stationed in the desert. It had been terrible, unspeakably terrible, to feel that resolution was weakening, and that when it failed altogether, he would desert and go in search of her.... Suppose that, with madman's cunning, and with madman's strength, he should be successful in an attempt to reach Tunis--the only possible way for a deserter without money--and should live to reach her, or to be recognised and proclaimed as the lost Sir Montague Merline. Her life in ruins and her children illegitimate--nameless bastards.... It was a horribly disturbing thought, that under the influence of cafard his mind might lose all ideas and memories and wishes except the one great longing to see her again, to clasp her in his arms again, to have and to hold.... Well--he had a lot to be thankful for. So long as Cyrus Hiram Milton was his bunk-mate it was not likely to happen. Cyrus would see that he did not desert, penniless and mad, into the desert. And now this English boy had come--a man with the same training, tastes, habits, haunts and clichés as himself. Doubtless they had numbers of common acquaintances. But he must be wary when on that ground. Possibly the boy knew Lord and Lady Huntingten.... After all it's a very small world, and especially the world of English Society, clubs, Services, and sport.... This boy would be a real companion, such as dear old Cyrus could never be, best of friends as he was. He would make a hobby of the boy, look after him, live his happy past again in talking of London, Sandhurst, Paris, racing, golf, theatres, clubs, and all the lost things whose memories they had in common. The boy might perhaps have been at Winchester too.... Thank Heaven he had come! It would make all the difference when cafard conditions arose again. Of course he'd get promoted Soldat première classe before long though, and then Caporal. Corporals may not walk and talk with private soldiers. Yes--the boy would rise and leave him behind. Just his luck.... Might he not venture to accept promotion now--after all these years, and rise step by step with him? No, better not. Thin end of the wedge. Once he allowed himself to be Soldat première classe he'd be accepting promotion to Caporal and Sergent before he knew it. The temptation to go on to Chef and Adjudant would be overwhelming, and when offered a commission (and the return to the life of an officer and gentleman) would be utterly irresistible. Then would come the very thing to prevent which he had buried himself alive in this hell of a Legion--recognition and then the public scandal of his wife's innocent bigamy, and her children's illegitimacy. As an officer he would meet foreign officers and visitors to Algeria. His portrait might get into the papers. He might have to go to Paris, or Marseilles, and run risks of being recognised. No--better to put away temptation and take no chance of the evil thing. Poor little Marguerite! Think of the cruel shattering blow to her. It would kill her to give up Huntingten in addition to knowing her children to be nameless, unable to inherit title or estates.... No--unthinkable! Do the thing properly or not at all.... But it was hell to be a second-class soldier all the time, and never be exempt from liability to sentry-duty, guards, fatigues, filthy corvées and punishment at the hands of Non-coms. seeking to acquire merit by discovering demerit.... And he could have had a commission straight away, when he got his bit of ferblanterie[#] in Tonkin and again in Dahomey. They knew he could speak German and had been an officer.... It had been a sore temptation--but, thank God, he had conquered it and not run the greatly enhanced risk of discovery. He ought really to have committed suicide directly he learned that she was married. No business to be alive--let alone grumbling about promotion. Moreover, if any living soul on this earth discovered that he was alive he must not only die, but let his wife have proof that he really was dead, this time. Then she and Huntingten could re-marry as the first ceremony was null and void, and the children be legitimatised.... Of course there would be more children--they loved each other so....

[#] lit., tin-ware (medals and decorations).

As things were, his being alive did the Huntingtens no harm. It was the knowledge of his existence that would do the injury--both legal and personal.... No harm, so long as it wasn't known. They were quite innocent in the sight of le bon Dieu, and so long as neither they, nor anyone else, knew--nothing mattered so far as they were concerned....

But fourteen years as a second-class soldier of the Legion! ... And what was he to do at the end of the fifteenth? They would not re-enlist him. He would get a pension of five hundred francs a year--twenty pounds a year--and he had got the cash "bonus" given him when he won the médaille militaire. Where could he hide again? Perhaps he could get a job as employed-pensioner of the Legion--such as sexton at the graveyard or assistant-cook, or Officers'-Mess servant? ... Otherwise he'd find himself one fine morning at the barracks-gates, dressed in a suit of blue sacking from the Quartermaster's store, fitting him where it touched him; a big flat tam-o'-shanter sort of cap; a rough shirt, and a blue cravat "to wind twice round the neck"; a pair of socks (for the first time in fifteen years), and a decent pair of boots. He'd have his papers, a free pass to any part of France he liked to name, a franc a day for the journey thereto, and his week's pay.

And what good would the papers and pass be to him--who dared not leave the shelter of the all-concealing Legion? ... Surely it would be safe for him to return to England, or at any rate to go to France or some other part of Europe? Why not to America or the Colonies? No, nowhere was safe, and nothing was certain. Besides, how was he to get there? His pass would take him to any part of France, and nowhere else. A fine thing--to hide in the Legion for fifteen years, actually to survive fifteen years of a second-class soldier's life in the Legion, and then to risk rendering it all useless! One breath of rumour--and Marguerite's life was spoilt.... Discovery--and it was ruined, just when her children (if she had any more) were on the threshold of their careers.... Well, life in the Legion was remarkably uncertain, and there still remained a year in which all problems might be finally solved by bullet, disease, or death in some other of the many forms in which it visited the step-sons of France.... Where was old Strong now? ...

Legionary John Bull fell asleep.

Meanwhile, a few inches from him, Reginald Rupert had found himself unusually and unpleasantly wakeful. It had been a remarkably full and tiring day, and as crowded with new experiences as the keenest experience-seeker could desire.... He was very glad he had come. This was going to be a good toughening man's life, and real soldiering. He would not have missed it for anything. It would hold a worthy place in the list of things which he had done and been, the list that, by the end of his life, he hoped would be a long and very varied one. By the time "the governor" died (and he trusted that might not happen for another forty years) he hoped to have been in many armies and Frontier Police forces, to have been a sailor, a cowboy, a big-game hunter, a trapper, an explorer and prospector, a gold-miner, a war correspondent, a gumdigger, and many other things in many parts of the world, in addition to his present record of Public-school, Sandhurst, 'Varsity man, British officer, trooper, and French Légionnaire. He hoped to continue to turn up in any part of the world where there was a war.

What Reginald, like his father, loathed and feared was Modern Society life, and in fact all modern civilised life as it had presented itself to his eyes--with its incredibly false standards, values and ideals, its shoddy shams and vulgar pretences, its fat indulgences, slothfulness and folly.

To him, as to his father (whose curious mental kink he had inherited), the world seemed a dreadful place in which drab, dull folk followed drab, dull pursuits for drab, dull ends. People who lived for pleasure were so occupied and exhausted in its pursuit that they got no pleasure. People who worked were so closely occupied in earning their living that they never lived. He did not know which class he disliked more--the men who lived their weary lives at clubs, grand-stands, country-house parties, Ranelagh and Hurlingham, the Riviera, the moors, and the Yacht Squadron; or those who lived dull laborious days in offices, growing flabby and grey in pursuit of the slippery shekel.