his round and received the Corporal's report as to absentees (stables, guard, leave, etc.) I was feeling certain that I must publicly disgrace myself.
However, I am a good sailor, and when the roll-call (which has no "calling" whatever) was finished, and all were free to do as they liked until ten o'clock, when the "Lights out" trumpet would be blown, I fled to the outer air, and saved my honour and my dinner.
I had to return, of course, but not to stand to attention like a statue while my head swam; and I soon found that I could support life with the help of a handkerchief which I had had the fore-thought to perfume.
While I was sitting on my bed (which consisted of two trestles supporting two narrow planks, and a sausage-like roll of straw-mattress and blankets, the whole being only two feet six inches wide), gazing blankly around upon the specimen of my fellow-man in bulk, and wondering if and when and where he washed, I was aware of a party approaching me, headed by the fair trooper who had been my guide to the office of the Squadron Sergeant-Major that morning.
"That is it," said their leader, pointing to me. "It is a Volontaire. It is dangerous too. A dreadful bully. Tried to throw me into the muck-heap when I wasn't looking . . ."
"Behold it," said a short, square, swarthy man, who looked, in spite of much fat, very powerful. "Regard it. It uses a scented handkerchief so as not to smell us."
"Well, we are not roses. Why should he smell us?" put in a little rat-like villain, edging forward.
He and the fat man were pushed aside by a typical hard-case fighting-man, such as one sees in boxing-booths, fencing-schools and gymnasia.
"See, Volontaire," he said, "you have insulted the Blue Hussars in the person of Trooper Mornec and by using a handkerchief in our presence. I am the champion swordsman of the Regiment, and I say that such insults can only be washed out in . . ."
"Blood," said I, reaching for my sword.
"No--wine," roared the gang as one man, and, rising, I put one arm through that of the champion swordsman and the other through that of Trooper Mornec, and we three headed a joyous procession to the canteen, where we solemnly danced the can-can with spirit and abandon.
I should think that the whole of my peloton (three escouades of ten men each) was present by the time we reached the bar, and it was there quickly enriched by the presence of the rest of the Squadron.
However, brandy was only a shilling a quart, and red wine fourpence, so it was no very serious matter to entertain these good fellows, nor was there any fear that their capacity to pour in would exceed mine to pay out.
But, upon my word, I think the combined smells of the canteen--rank tobacco-smoke, garlic, spirits, cooking, frying onions, wine, burning fat and packed humanity--were worse than those of the barrack-room; and it was borne in upon me that not only must the soldier's heart be in the right place, but his stomach also. . . .
The "Lights out" trumpet saved me from death in the canteen, and I returned to die in the barrack-room, if I must.
Apparently I returned a highly popular person, for none of the usual tricks was played upon me, such as the jerking away (by means of a rope) of one of the trestles supporting the bed, as soon as the recruit has forgotten his sorrows in sleep.
De Lannec had told me what to expect, and I had decided to submit to most of the inflictions with a good grace and cheerful spirit, while certain possible indignities I was determined to resist to the point of serious bloodshed.
With Dufour's help, I inserted my person into the sausage precariously balanced on the planks, and fell asleep in spite of sharp-pointed straws, the impossibility of turning in my cocoon, the noisy illness of several gentlemen who had spent the evening unwisely, the stamping and chain-rattling of horses, the cavalry-trumpet snoring of a hundred cavalry noses, and the firm belief that I should in the morning be found dead from poisoning and asphyxiation.
All very amusing. . . .
Chapter IV.
A Perfect Day
I found myself quite alive, however, at five o'clock the next morning, when the Corporal of the Week passed through the room bawling, "Anyone sick here?"
I was about to reply that although I was not being sick at the moment, I feared I shortly should be, when I realized that the Corporal was collecting names for the Sergeant-Major's morning report, and not making polite inquiries as to how we were feeling after a night spent in the most mephitic atmosphere that human beings could possibly breathe, and live.
There is no morning roll-call in the Cavalry, but the Sergeant-Major gets the names of those who apply for medical attention, and removes them from the duty-list of each peloton.
For half an hour I lay awake wondering what would happen if I sprang from my bed and opened a window--or broke a window if they were not made for opening. I was on the point of making this interesting discovery when the reveillé trumpets rang out, in the square below, and I was free to leave my bed--at five-thirty of a bitter cold morning.
Corporal Lepage came to me as I repressed my first yawn (fearing to inhale the poison-gas unnecessarily) and bade me endue my form with canvas and clogs, and hie me to the stables.
Hastily I put on the garb of a gutter-scavenger and, guided by Dufour, hurried through the rain to my pleasing task.
In the stable was a different smell, but it was homogeneous and, on the whole, I preferred the smell of the horses to that of their riders. (You see, we clean the horses thoroughly, daily. In the Regulations it is so ordered. But as to the horsemen, it says, "A Corporal must sleep in the same room with the troopers of his escouade and must see that his troopers wash their heads, faces, hands and feet." This much would be something, at any rate, if only he carried out the Regulations.)
At the stables I received my first military order.
"Clean the straw under those four horses," said the Sergeant on stable-duty.
An unpleasing but necessary work.
Some one had to do it, and why not I? Doubtless the study of the art of separation of filthy straw from filthier straw, and the removal of manure, is part of a sound military training.
I looked round for implements. I believed that a pitch-fork and shovel were the appropriate and provided tools for the craftsman in this line of business.
"What the hell are you gaping at? You . . ." inquired the Sergeant, with more liberty of speech than fraternity or equality.
"What shall I do it with, Sergeant?" I inquired.
"Heaven help me from killing it!" he moaned, and then roared: "Have you no hands, Village Idiot? D'you suppose you do it with your toe-nails, or the back of your neck?"
And it was so. With my lily-white hands I laboured well and truly, and loaded barrows until they were piled high. I took an artistic interest in my work, patting a shapely pyramid upon the barrow, until:
"Dufour," I said, "I am going to be so very
