By the seventh halt, some forty kilometres, or twenty-seven miles lay behind the Battalion. At the word Halt! every man had thrown himself at full length on the sand, and very few wasted precious moments of the inexorably exact five minutes of the rest-period in removing knapsacks. Hardly a man spoke; none smoked.
On tramped the Legion.
Gone was all pretence of smartness and devil-may-care humour--that queer macabre and bitter humour of the Legion. Men slouched and staggered, and dragged their feet in utter hopeless weariness. Backs rounded more and more, heads sank lower, and those who limped almost outnumbered those who did not. A light push would have sent any man stumbling to the ground.
As the whistle blew for the next halt, the Legion sank to the ground with a groan, as though it would never rise again. As the whistle blew for the advance the Legion staggered to its feet as one man.... Oh, the Legion marches! Is not its motto, "March or Die"? The latter it may do, the former it must. The Legion has its orders and its destination, and it marches. If it did not reach its destination at the appointed time, it would be because it had died in getting there.
On tramped the Legion.
With horrible pains in its blistered shoulders, its raw-rubbed backs, its protesting, aching legs and blistered heels and toes, the Legion staggered on, a silent pitiable mass of suffering. Up and down the entire length of the Battalion rode its Colonel, "the Marching Pig." Every few yards he bawled with brazen throat and leathern lungs: "March or die, my children! March or die!" And the Legion clearly understood that it must march or it must die. To stagger from the ranks and fall was to die of thirst and starvation, or beneath the flissa of the Arab.
Legionary Rupert blessed those "Breakfasts of the Legion" and the hard training which achieved and maintained the hard condition of the Legionary. Sick, giddy, and worn-out as he felt, he knew he could keep going at least as long as the average, and by the time the average man had reached the uttermost end of his tether, the end of their march must be reached. After all, though they were Legionaries whose motto was "March or Die," they were only human beings--and to all human effort and endeavour there is a limit. He glanced at his comrades. The Bucking Bronco swung along erect, his rifle held across his shoulder by the muzzle, and his belt, with all its impedimenta, swinging from his right hand. He stared straight ahead and, with vacant mind and tireless iron body, "threw his feet."
Beside him, John Bull looked very white and worn and old. He leant heavily against the pull of his straps and marched with his chest bare. On Rupert's left, 'Erb, having unbuttoned and unbuckled everything unbuttonable and unbuckleable, slouched along, a picture of slack unsoldierliness and of dauntless dogged endurance. Suddenly throwing up his head he screamed from parched lips, "Aw we dahn'earted?" and, having painfully swallowed, answered his own strident question with a long-drawn, contemptuous "Ne--a--ow." Captain d'Armentières, who knew England and the English, looked round with a smile.... "Bon garçon," he nodded.
On the right of the second row of fours marched Luigi Rivoli, in better case than most, as the bulk of his kit was now impartially distributed among Malvin, Meyer, Tou-tou and Tant-de-Soif. (The power of money in the Legion is utterly incredible.) Feodor Kyrilovitch was carrying the Grasshopper's rifle--and that made a mighty difference toward the end of a thirty-mile march.
At the end of the next halt, the Grasshopper declared that he could not get up.... At the command, "Fall in!" the unfortunate man did not stir.