This was what the master of the stores said as he stood with his back against the rough pine door-post of his quarters and rubbed his shoulder-blades luxuriously. But in practice I looked like a carnival Mephistopheles, while Hugh Deventer's feather generally drooped over one eye in a drunken fashion. We were not long in suppressing these gauds, though we did our duty in them as gallopers for several days. Finally we went to Ricciotti and begged to be allowed to carry our rifles in one of the foot regiments. We did not want to leave the foreign troops, knowing something of the ostracism and persecution which would be our part among the French regiments. So we were allowed to return our chargers to the remounting officer, and make another visit to the small rotund outfitter in his wooden barrack by the river. There of all our gallant array we retained only our red shirts, and for the rest were rigged out in sober dark blue, a képi apiece, and a pair of stout marching shoes on our feet.
We mounted knapsack and haversack, shouldered our Henry rifles, and in an hour found ourselves established among the first "Etranger," a Milanese regiment with three or four mountain companies from Valtelline and the Bergel.
Now it chanced that I had spent some part of my vacations climbing among the peaks about Promontonio. There I had taken, more as companion than as guide, a Swiss-Italian, or to be exact "Ladin"—of my own age or a little older, by the name of Victor Dor. He was a pleasant lad, and we talked of many things as we shared the contents of our rük-sacks on the perilous shoulder of some mountain just a few feet removed from the overhang of the glacier.
And here and now, with the chevrons of a sergeant, was this same Victor Dor, who embraced me as if he had been my brother.
"Oh, the happiness to see you!" he cried. "And among the children of our father. I know you do not come to save the French who shot us down at Mentana. You are like us. You come because our father calls, and yet to think of those long days in the Val Bergel when we never knew that we were brothers. And yet I do not know. You spoke of the Man who was a Carpenter at Nazareth, and who called his disciples to follow him. So our father came, and we followed him. Princes and Emperors scatter honours. Republics give decorations and offices. But look at our lads lying on the straw yonder. Where will they be in a week? In the hospital or in the grave? Some of these men are well off at home, others are poor. No matter! All share alike, and all are equal before our father. Ah, that is it! You see there is nothing to be gained except the joy of following him. Our poor dear father Garibaldi, what has he to offer? He has nothing for himself but a barren isle, and even that he owes to you English.[[1]] The liberty of following him, of seeing his face when he passes by, of hearing his voice as he calls us his children, the pride of being his very own chosen, who have shared his perils and never deserted him to the last. These are our rewards. Tell me if they are of this world?"
[1] See Hamerton's "Round my House."
CHAPTER XV
FIRST BLOOD
On the third morning after our entry into the Ricciotti's first foreign legion, both Hugh and I awoke stiff and chilled by the frost. The lucky among us had early found quarters in byres and cattle-sheds, where the closely packed animals kept the place warm. We had to make the best of it on a floor of beaten earth, still sparsely strewn with heads of wheat and flecks of straw. The fodder had been requisitioned to the last armful, and not enough was left to build a nest for a sparrow. The barn was doorless, and, except for the shelter of the roof, we might as well have slept in the open air. At least so we thought, but next day men on the outposts told us a different tale. That night the head-quarters thermometers had showed twenty below zero, and many men slept never again to waken, under the open sky—slept leaning on their chassepots, and so died standing up, no one guessing they were dead till they fell over all in one piece like an icicle snapped.