other hand, if we were not taken (and we were still very junior soldiers), we should at any rate have Isobel's visit to Sidi-bel-Abbès to look forward to.
So great was my longing to see her that, had I been alone, I really think that I should, at times, have toyed with the idea of "going on pump," "making the promenade," which all légionnaires continually discuss and frequently attempt. This "going on pump," whatever that may mean, is the Legion name for deserting, and generally consists in slow preparation and swift capture, or a few days' thirst-agony in the desert, and ignominious return, or else in unspeakable torture and mutilation at the hands of the Arabs.
Less than one in a hundred succeed in escaping, for, in addition to the patrols, the desert, and the Arabs, the native armed-police goumiers receive a reward of twenty-five francs a head for the return of deserters, dead or alive.
Being matchless trackers, well-armed, good shots, and brave men, they are very successful bloodhounds.
However, the attempt is frequently made by maddened victims of injustice or of sheer monotony and hardship, and their punishment, when caught, varies from leniency to cruel severity, according to the degree of cafard from which they were suffering, and to the amount of uniform and kit they may have lost.
One man, whom I knew personally, when under sentence to appear before the supreme court martial of Oran, which in his case meant certain death, got clean away, and was known to have escaped from the country.
Several, whom I knew, went off into the desert and were either found dead and mutilated, or never heard of more; and many either escaped and surrendered again, or were brought back running, or dragging on the ground, at the end of a cord tied to the saddle of an Arab police goum. . . .
However, we had come here to make careers for ourselves as Soldiers of Fortune, and to become Generals in the Army of France, as other foreigners had done, from the ranks of the Legion. And we did our utmost to achieve selection for the picked battalion that was to march south for the next forward leap of the apostles of pacific penetration (or pacification of the newly-penetrated areas) of the Sahara of the Soudan.
§9.
One evening, at about this period of our depôt life, Maris, the Swiss ex-courier, came to me as I lay on my cot, resting and awaiting the return of Michael and Digby from corvée. Said he:
"I have something to tell you, Monsieur Smith. You have done me many a good turn, and you saved me from prison when my tunic was stolen and I could not have replaced it in time for the adjudant's inspection. . . . Will you and your brothers meet me at Mustapha's at six to-night? It will be worth your while. We shall be safe enough there, especially if we talk in English . . ." and he glanced apprehensively round the busy room, and jerked his head towards Colonna and an Italian named Guantaio, who were working together at the table.
I thanked him and said that I would tell my brothers, and that if they returned in time, from the "fatigue" on which they were engaged, we would look in at Mustapha's.
When Michael and Digby came in from the job of sweeping and weeding, for which they had been seized by a sergeant, I told them what Maris had said.
"Better go," remarked Michael. "Maris is the clean potato, I think. No harm in hearing it anyhow."
Mustapha's was an Arab café, where we got splendid coffee very cheaply--thick, black, and sweet, with a drop of vanilla, a drop of hashish oil, or of opium, a drop of orange-essence, and other flavourings.
Here we rested ourselves on a big and very low divan, with a solid wall behind us, and awaited Maris, who came a few minutes later.
"It's like this, my friends," said he, in his excellent English, when we had got our little clay cups of coffee steaming on the floor in front of us. "I don't want to make what you call the mare's nest, isn't it? But Boldini is up to his tricks again. . . . I have heard a lot about him from Vaerren and from old légionnaires who served with him before. . . . He is the bad hat, that one. They say that Lejaune will get him made a corporal soon. . . . Well, I have noticed things, I.
"Yes. And last night I was sitting in the Tlemcen Gardens. It was getting dark. Behind the seat were bushes, and another path ran by the other side. Some légionnaires came along it, and sat down on a seat that must have been just behind mine. They were talking Italian. I know Italian well, and I always listen to foreign languages. . . . Yes, I shall be a courier again when the little trouble has blown over about the man I taught not to steal my fiancée, while I travel. Yes. . . ."
He paused dramatically, and with much eye-rolling and gesticulation continued:
"Boldini it was, and Colonna and Guantaio. He had been trying to get them to do something and they were afraid. Boldini, for some reason, also wanted Colonna to change beds with him, to make this something easier to do.
"'Yes, and what if I am caught?' said Colonna.
"'You're as good a man as he is,' said Boldini.
"'And what about his brothers? Yes--and his friends the Americans?' asked Colonna.
"'And what about your friends--me and Guantaio and Vogué and Gotto? What about Sergeant-Major Lejaune, if someone makes a row, and Corporal Dupré reports the man to him and I give my humble evidence as an eye-witness--in private? Eh? . . . "Brothers," you say! Aren't Lejaune and I like brothers?'
"'Why not do it yourself then?' said Guantaio.
"'Because I'm going to be made corporal soon,' replied Boldini, 'and I mustn't be in any rows. . . . Ah, when I'm corporal, I shall be able to look after my friends, eh?' Then he went on to remind them of what they could do with a thousand francs--more than fifty years of their pay, for a two-minute job.
"Then Guantaio, who seems to be a pluckier dog than Colonna, said:
"'How do you know he has got it?' and Boldini replied, 'Because I heard them say so. They are a gang. Swell thieves. They have asked me if thieves in the Legion are given up to the police. When the third one joined at Oran, I guessed it from what they said. And they were flash with their money. They got together at night, out in the courtyard, and I crept up behind a buttress close to them and listened. I could not hear everything, but they spoke of a jewel-robbery and thirty thousand pounds. The one they call "Le Beau" said he kept it like the canguro . . . the kangaroo . . . keeps its young! I heard him plainly.
"'And where does the canguro keep its young? In a pouch on its stomach, and that is where this thief, Légionnaire Guillaume Brown, keeps this jewel. In a pouch. . . . He wears it day and night.
"'And it's a thousand francs for the man that gets me the pouch. And I'll take the chance and risk of getting the jewel sold in the Ghetto for more than a thousand. . . . Some of those Ghetto Jews are millionaires. . . . I'd put the lamp out. One man could gag and hold him, while the other got it, and they could run to their beds in the dark.' . . .
"And much more of the same sort he talked, egging them on, and then they went away, but with nothing settled," continued Maris.
Digby and I burst into laughter at mention of the kangaroo, and Michael turned, smiling to Maris.
When the latter stopped, Digby asked if Boldini had not also divulged that he wore a sapphire eye, and I enquired if the wily Italian had not observed a lump in Digby's cheek, where a simian pouch concealed a big jewel.
"The
