The Truants Part 23

"We shall see them at the barracks, it is true. But you are wrong when you say that it will be soon enough. At the barracks they will be prepared for us, they will have their little stories ready for us, they will be armed with discretion. But let us see them descend from the train, let us watch their first look round at their new home, their new fatherland. We may learn a little, and if it is ever so little it will help us to know them the better afterwards. And at the worst it will be an amusing exercise in psychology."

They walked away from the cafe, and strolled down the Rue de Mascara under the shady avenue of trees, Tavernay moving with a long, indolent stride, which covered a deal of ground with a surprising rapidity, Laurent fidgeting along discontentedly at his side. M. Laurent was beginning, in fact, to regret the hurry with which he had sought a commission in the Foreign Legion. M. Laurent had, a few months ago, in Paris, imagined himself to be irrevocably in love with the wife of one of his friends, a lady at once beautiful and mature; M. Laurent had declared his pa.s.sion upon a suitable occasion; M. Laurent had been snubbed for his pains; M. Laurent in a fit of pique had sought the consolation of another climate and foreign service; and M. Laurent was now quickly realising that he was not nearly so heartbroken as he had fancied himself to be. Already while he walked to the station he was thinking that, after all, Paris was endurable, even though one particular woman could not refrain from a little smile of amus.e.m.e.nt when he crossed her path.

Captain Tavernay had timed their walk accurately. For as they reached the station the train was signalled.

"Let us stand here, behind these cases," said Tavernay. "We shall see and not be seen."

In a few moments the train moved slowly in and stopped. From the furthermost carriage the detachment descended, and, following a _sous-officier_ in the uniform of the Legion, walked towards the cases behind which Tavernay and his companion were concealed. In front came two youths, fair of complexion and of hair, dressed neatly, well shod, who walked with a timidity of manner as though they expected to be questioned and sent packing.

"Who can they be?" asked Laurent. "They are boys."

"Yet they will give their age as eighteen," replied Tavernay, and his voice trembled ever so slightly; "and we shall ask no questions."

"But they bear no marks of misery. They are not poor. Whence can they come?" Laurent repeated.

"I can tell you that," said Tavernay. He was much moved. He spoke with a deep note of reverence. "They come from Alsace or Lorraine. We get many such. They will not serve Germany. At all costs they _will_ serve France."

Lieutenant Laurent was humbled. Here was a higher motive than pique, here was a devotion which would not so quickly tire of discipline and service. He gazed with a momentary feeling of envy at these two youths who insisted, at so high a price, on being his compatriots.

"You see," said Tavernay, with a smile, "it was worth while to come to the station and see the recruits arrive, even on so hot a day as this."

"Yes," replied Laurent; and then "look!"

Following the two youths walked a man tall and powerful, with the long, loose stride of one well versed in sports. He held his head erect, and walked defiantly, daring you to question him. His hands were long and slender, well-kept, unused to labour, his face aquiline and refined. He looked about thirty-five years old. He wore a light overcoat of a fine material, which hung open, and underneath the overcoat he was attired in evening dress. It was his dress which had riveted Laurent's attention; and certainly nothing could have seemed more bizarre, more strangely out of place. The hot African sun poured down out of a cloudless sky; and a new recruit for the Foreign Legion stepped out of a railway carriage as though he had come straight from a ball-room. What sudden disaster could have overtaken him? In what tragedy had he borne a part? Even Laurent's imagination was stimulated into speculation. As the man pa.s.sed him, Laurent saw that his tie was creased and dusty, his s.h.i.+rt-front rumpled and soiled. That must needs have been. At some early hour on a spring morning, some four or five days ago, this man must have rushed into the guard-room of a barrack-square in some town of France. Laurent turned to Tavernay eagerly--

"What do you make of him?"

Tavernay shrugged his shoulders.

"A man of fas.h.i.+on, who has made a fool of himself. They make good soldiers as a rule."

"But he will repent!"

"He has already had the time, and he has not. There is no escort for recruits until they reach Ma.r.s.eilles. Suppose that he enlisted in Paris. He is given the fare. At any station between Paris and Ma.r.s.eilles he could have got out and returned."

The man in evening-dress walked on. There were dark shadows under his eyes, the eyes themselves were sombre and alert.

"We shall know something of him soon," said Tavernay. He watched his recruit with so composed an air that Laurent cried out--

"Can nothing astonish you?"

"Very little," answered Tavernay, phlegmatically. "Listen, my friend.

One day, some years ago, a captain of Hussars landed at Oran. He came to Bel-Abbes with a letter of introduction to me. He stayed with me.

He expressed a wish to see my men on parade. I turned them out. He came to the parade-ground and inspected them. As he pa.s.sed along the ranks he suddenly stopped in front of an old soldier with fifteen years' service in the Legion, much of which fifteen years had been pa.s.sed in the cells. The old soldier was a drunkard--oh, but a confirmed drunkard. Well, in front of this man my young Captain with the curled moustaches stopped--stopped and turned very pale. But he did not speak. My soldier looked at him respectfully, and the Captain continued his inspection. Well, they were father and son--that is all.

Why should anything astonish me?" and Captain Tavernay struck a match and lighted a cigarette.

The match, however, attracted attention to the presence of the officers. Four men who marched, keeping time with their feet and holding their hands stiffly at their sides, saw the flame and remarked the uniforms. Their hands rose at once to the salute.

"Ah! German deserters," said Tavernay. "They fight well."

Others followed, men in rags and out of shoe-leather, outcasts and fugitives; and behind them came one who was different. He was tall and well-knit, with a frank open face, not particularly intellectual, on the other hand not irretrievably stupid. He was dressed in a double-breasted, blue-serge suit, and as he walked he now and then gave a twist to his fair moustache, as though he were uneasy and embarra.s.sed. Captain Tavernay ran his eyes over him with the look of a connoisseur.

"Aha!" said he, with a chuckle of satisfaction. "The true legionary!

Hard, finely trained, he has done work too. Yes! You see, Laurent, he is a little ashamed, a little self-conscious. He feels that he is looking a fool. I wonder what nationality he will claim."

"He comes from the North," said Lament. "Possibly from Normandy."

"Oh, I know what he is," returned Tavernay. "I am wondering only what he will claim to be. Let us go outside and see."

Tavernay led the way to the platform. Outside, in front of the station, the _sous-officier_ marshalled his men in a line. They looked a strange body of men as they stood there, blinking in the strong sunlight. The man in the ruffled silk hat and the dress-suit toed the line beside a bundle of rags; the German deserters rubbed elbows with the "true legionary" in the blue serge. Those thirty men represented types of almost all the social grades, and to a man they were seeking the shelter of anonymity in that monastery of action, the Foreign Legion.

"Answer to your names," said the _sous-officier_, and from a paper in his hand he began to read. The answers came back, ludicrous in their untruth. A French name would be called.

"Montaubon."

And a German voice replied--

"Present."

"Ohlsen," cried the _sous-officier_, and no answer was given.

"Ohlsen," he repeated sharply. "Is not Ohlsen here?"

And suddenly the face of the man in the serge suit flashed, and he answered hurriedly--

"Present."

Even the _sous-officier_ burst into a laugh. The reason for the pause was too obvious; "Ohlsen" had forgotten that Ohlsen was now his name.

"My lad, you must keep your ears open," said the _sous-officier_.

"Now, attention. Fours right. March!"

And the detachment marched off towards the barracks.

"Ohlsen," said Tavernay, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Well, what does it matter? Come!"

"Ohlsen" was Tony Stretton, and all the way along the Rue Daya to the barracks he was longing for the moment when he would put on the uniform and cease to figure ridiculously in this grotesque procession.

None the less he had to wait with the others, drawn up in the barrack-square until Captain Tavernay returned. The Captain went to his office, and thither the recruits were marched. One by one they entered in at the door, answered his questions, and were sent off to the regimental tailor. Tony Stretton was the last.

"Name?" asked Tavernay.

"Hans Ohlsen."

"Town of enlistment?"

"Ma.r.s.eilles."

Tavernay compared the answers with some writing on a sheet of paper.