P. C. Wren - Beau Geste - Complete Series - Beau Geste Trilogy & Good Gestes Tales

" Now , pard," said Hank to me, "I could shore look upon the wine without no evil effecks to nobody," and we trooped out in search of the canteen.

The big gloomy quadrangle of Fort St. Jean was now crowded with soldiers of every regiment of the army of Africa, the famous Nineteenth Army Corps, and, for the first time, I saw the Spahis of whom the French officer had talked to us at Brandon Abbas.

Their trousers were voluminous enough to be called skirts, in fact one leg would have provided the material for an ample frock. Above these garments they wore sashes that appeared to be yards in length and feet in width. In these they rolled each other up, one man holding and manipulating the end, while the other spun round and round towards him, winding the sash tightly about himself as he did so.

Gaudy waistcoats, zouave jackets, fez caps, and vast scarlet cloaks completed their picturesquely barbaric costumes.

Besides the Spahis were blue-and-yellow Tirailleurs, pale blue Chasseurs d'Afrique, and red-and-blue Zouaves, blue Colonial Infantry, as well as artillerymen, sappers, and soldiers of the line, in their respective gay uniforms.

There was a babel of noise and a confusing turmoil as these leave-men rushed about in search of pay-corporals, fourrier-sergents , kit, papers, food, and the canteen. The place was evidently the clearing-house and military hotel for all soldiers coming from, or returning to, the army of Africa.

Following the current that flowed through this seething whirlpool, in the direction of a suggestive-looking squad of huge wine-casks that stood arrayed outside an open door, we found ourselves in the canteen and the presence of the national drink, good red wine.

"No rye-whiskey at a dollar a drink here, Bo," observed Buddy, as we made our way to a zinc-covered counter, and found that everybody was drinking claret at three-halfpence the bottle. "Drinks are on you, pard. Set 'em up."

"Gee! It's what they call 'wine,'" sighed Hank. "Gotta get used to it with the other crool de pri vations and hardships," and he drained the tumbler that I filled.

"It is lickker, Bo," replied Buddy tolerantly, and drained another.

It was, and very good liquor too. It struck me as far better wine than one paid a good deal for at Oxford, and good enough to set before one's guests anywhere.

Personally I am a poor performer with the bottle, and regard wine as something to taste and appreciate, rather than as a thirst-quenching beverage.

Also I freely confess that the sensation produced by more than enough, or by mixing drinks, is, to me, most distasteful.

I would as soon experience the giddiness caused by spinning round and round, as the giddiness caused by alcohol. More than a little makes me feel sick, silly, depressed, and uncomfortable, and I have never been able to understand the attraction that intoxication undoubtedly has for some people.

It is therefore in no way to my credit that I am a strictly sober person, and as little disposed to exceed in wine as in cheese, pancakes, or dry toast.

"Quite good wine," said I to the two Americans, "but I can't say I like it as a drink between meals."

I found that my companions were of one mind with me, though perhaps for a different reason.

"Yep," agreed Buddy. "Guess they don't allow no intoxicatin' hard lickkers in these furrin canteens."

"Nope," remarked Hank. "We gotta swaller this an' be thankful. P'r'aps we kin go out an' have a drink when we git weary-like. . . . Set 'em up again, Bo," and I procured them each his third bottle.

"You ain't drinkin', pard," said Buddy, eyeing my half-emptied first glass.

"Not thirsty," I replied.

"Thirsty?" said Hank. "Don' s'pose there's any water here if you was," and feeling I had said the wrong thing, covered my confusion by turning away and observing the noisy, merry throng, drinking and chattering around me. They were a devil-may-care, hard-bitten, tough-looking crowd, and I found myself positively looking forward to being in uniform and one of them.

As I watched, I saw a civilian coming from the door towards us. I had noticed him in the barrack-room. Although dressed in an ill-fitting, shoddy, shabby blue suit, a velvet tam-o'-shanter, burst shoes, and apparently nothing else, he looked like a soldier. Not that he had by any means the carriage of an English guardsman--far from it--but his face was a soldier's, bronzed, hard, disciplined, and of a family likeness to those around.

Coming straight to us, he said pleasantly, and with only the slightest foreign accent:

"Recruits for the Legion?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Would you care to exchange information for a bottle?" he asked politely, with an ingratiating smile which did not extend to his eyes.

"I should be delighted if you will drink with us," I replied, and put a two-franc piece on the counter.

He chose to think that the money was for him to accept, and not for the fat little man behind the bar to change.

"You are a true comrade," said the new-comer, "and will make a fine légionnaire . There are a dozen bottles here," and he spun the coin. "Now ask me anything you want to know," and he included the two stolid Americans in the graceful bow with which he concluded. He was evidently an educated and cultured person and not English.

"Sure," said Hank. "I wants ter know when we gits our next eats."

"An' if we can go out and git a drink," added Buddy.

"You'll get soupe , bread, and coffee at about four o'clock, and you won't be allowed to leave here for any purpose whatever until you are marched down to the boat for Oran," was the prompt reply.

His hearers pursed their lips in stolid silence.

"When will that be?" I asked.

"To-morrow by the steam-packet, unless there is a troop-ship going the day after," answered the new-comer. "They ship the Legion recruits in--ah--dribbles? dribblings? driblets? Yes, driblets--by every boat that goes."

"Suppose a friend of mine joined a day or two before me," I asked, "where would he be now, do you suppose?"

"He is at Fort St. Thérèse at Oran now," was the reply. "And may go on to Saida or Sidi-bel-Abbès to-morrow or the next day. Sidi, probably, if he is a strong fellow."

"Say, you're a walking encyclopedestrian," remarked Buddy, eyeing the man speculatively, and perhaps with more criticism than approval.

"I can tell you anything about the Legion," replied the man in his excellent refined English--about which there was no accent such as that of a Londoner, north-countryman, or yokel, but only a slight foreign suggestion--"I am an old légionnaire , rejoining after five years' service and my discharge."

"Speaks well for the Legion," I remarked cheerfully.

"Or ill for the chance of an ex- légionnaire to get a crust of bread," he observed, less cheerfully.

"Been up against it, son?" asked Hank.

"Starved. Tramped my feet off. Slept in the mud. Begged myself hoarse--for work. . . . Driven at last to choose between gaol and the Legion. . . . I chose the Legion, for some reason. . . . Better the devils that you know than flee to the devils that you know not of. . . ."

"Guy seems depressed," said Hank.

"May I finish your wine?" went on the man. "It would be a sin to waste it."

"Pray do," said I, surprised; and reminded myself that I was no longer at Oxford.

"You speak wonderful English," I remarked.

"I do," was the reply; "but better Italian, Hindustani, and French. Legion French, that is."

"An' how's that, ole hoss?" enquired Buddy.

"Father an Italian pastry-cook in Bombay. Went to an English school there, run by the Jesuit Fathers. Talked Hindustani to my ayah. Mother really talked it better than anything else, being what they call a country-bred. Daughter of an English soldier and an Eurasian girl. Got my French in the Legion, of course," explained the stranger.