The Wages of Virtue Part 19

"Oh, nothing's regular," was the reply. "'Rounds' end when you fall apart, and 'time' ends when both are ready.... You aren't going for him again, are you?"

"I'm going for him as long as I can stand and see," was the answer.

'Erb patted him on the back.

"Blimey! You're a White Man, matey," he commended. "S'welp me, you are!"

"Seconds out of the ring," bawled the Bucking Bronco, and unceremoniously shoved back all who delayed.

A look of incredulity spread over the face of the Italian. Could it be possible that the fool did not know that he was utterly beaten and abolished? ... He tenderly felt his jaw and aching ribs....

It was true. The Englishman advanced upon him, the light of battle in his eyes, and fierce determination expressed in the frown upon his white face. His mouth bore no expression--it was merely a mess.

A cheer went up from the spectators.

A recruit asking for it _twice_, from Luigi Rivoli!

That famous man, though by no means anxious, was slightly perplexed.

There was something here to which he was not accustomed. It was the first time in his experience that this had happened. Few men had defied and faced him once--none had done it twice. This, in itself was bad, and in the nature of a faint blow to his prestige.... He had tried a grapple--with unfortunate results; he had tried a kick--most successfully, and he would try another in a moment. Lest his opponent should be warily expecting it, he would now administer a battering-ram b.u.t.t. He crouched forward, extending his open hands as though to grapple, and, suddenly ducking his head, flung himself forward, intending to drive the breath from his enemy's body and seize him by the throat ere he recovered.

Lightly and swiftly the Englishman side-stepped and, as he did so, smote the Italian with all his strength full upon the ear--a blow which caused that organ to swell hugely, and to "sing" for hours. Rivoli staggered sideways and fell. The Englishman stood back and waited. Rivoli arose as quickly as he fell, and, with a roar of rage, charged straight at the Englishman, who drove straight at his face, left and right, cutting his knuckles to the bone. Heavy and true as were the blows, they could not avail to stop that twenty-stone projectile, and, in a second, the Italian's arms were round him. One mighty hug and heave, and his whole body, clasped as in a vice to that of the Italian, was bent over backward in a bow.

"Thet's torn it," groaned the American, and dashed his kepi upon the ground. "Fer two d.a.m.ns I'd..."

John Bull laid a restraining hand upon his arm.

"Go it, Rupert," bawled 'Erb, dancing in a frenzy of excitement. "Git 'is froat.... Swing up yer knee.... Kick 'im."

"Shut up," snapped John Bull. "He's not a hooligan...."

One of Rupert's arms was imprisoned in those of the Italian. True to his training and standards, he played the game as he had learnt it, and kept his free right hand from his opponent's throat. With his failing strength he rained short-arm blows on the Italian's face, until it was turned sideways and crushed against his neck and shoulder.

John Bull mistook the bully's action.

"If you bite his throat, I'll shoot you, Rivoli," he shouted, and applauding cheers followed the threat.

The muscles of Rivoli's back and arms tightened and bunched as he strained with all his strength. Slowly but surely he bent further over, drawing the Englishman's body closer and closer in his embrace.

To John Bull, the seconds seemed years. Complete silence reigned.

Rupert's blows weakened and became feeble. They ceased. Rivoli bent over further. As Rupert's right arm fell to his side, the Italian seized it from behind. His victim was now absolutely powerless and motionless. John Bull was reminded of a boa-constrictor which he had once seen crush a deer. Suddenly the Italian's left arm was withdrawn, his right arm continuing to imprison Rupert's left while his right hand retained his grip of the other. Thrusting his left hand beneath the Englishman's chin he put all his colossal strength into one great effort--pus.h.i.+ng the head back until it seemed that the neck must break, and at the same time contracting his great right arm and bending himself almost double. He then raised his opponent and dashed him to the ground....

Reginald Rupert recovered consciousness in the Legion's Hospital.

A skilful, if somewhat brutal, surgeon soon decided that his back was not broken but only badly sprained. On leaving hospital, a fortnight later, he did eight days _salle de police_ by way of convalescence.

On return to duty, he found himself something of a hero in the Seventh Company, and decidedly the hero of the recruits of his _chambree_.

Disregarding the earnest entreaties of John Bull and the reiterated advice of the Bucking Bronco, and of the almost wors.h.i.+pping 'Erb--he awaited Luigi Rivoli on the evening after his release and challenged him to fight.

The great man burst into explosive laughter--laughter almost too explosive to be wholly genuine.

"Fight you, whelp! Fight you, _whelp_!" he scoffed. "_Why_ should I fight you? Pah! Out of my sight--I have something else to do."

"Oh have you? Well, don't forget that I have nothing else to do, any time you feel like fighting. See?" replied the Englishman.

The Italian again roared with laughter, and Rupert with beating heart and well-concealed sense of mighty relief, returned to his cot to work.

It was noticeable that Il Signor Luigi Rivoli invariably had something else to do, so far as Rupert was concerned, and molested him no more.

CHAPTER VI

LE CAFARD AND OTHER THINGS

For Legionnaire Reginald Rupert the days slipped past with incredible rapidity, and, at the end of six months, this adaptable and exceedingly keen young man felt himself to be an old and seasoned Legionary, for whom the Depot held little more in the way of instruction and experience.

His thoughts began to turn to Foreign Service. When would he be able to volunteer for a draft going to Tonkin, Madagascar, Senegal, or some other place of scenes and experiences entirely different from those of Algeria? When would he see some active service--that which he had come so far to see, and for which he had undergone these hards.h.i.+ps and privations?

Deeply interested as he was in all things military, and anxious as he was to learn and become the Compleat Soldier, he found himself beginning to grow very weary of the trivial round, the common task, of Life in the Depot. Once he knew his drill as an Infantryman, he began to feel that the proportion of training and instruction to that of corvee and fatigues was small. He had not travelled all the way to Algiers to handle broom and wheelbarrow, and perform non-military labours at a wage of a halfpenny per day. Of course, one took the rough with the smooth and shrugged one's shoulders with the inevitable "Que voulez-vous?

C'est la Legion," but, none the less, he had had enough, and more than enough, of Depot life.

He sometimes thought of going to the _Adjudant-Major_, offering to provide proofs that he had been a British officer, and claiming to be placed in the cla.s.s of _angehende corporale_ (as he called the _eleves Caporaux_ or probationary Corporals) with a view to promotion and a wider and different sphere of action.

There were reasons against this course, however. It would, very probably, only result in his being stuck in the Depot permanently, as a Corporal-Instructor--the more so as he spoke German. Also, it was neither quite worth while, nor quite playing the game, as he did not intend to spend more than a year in the Legion and was looking forward to his attempt at desertion as his first real Great Adventure.

He had heard horrible stories of the fate of most of those who go "on pump," as, for no discoverable reason, the Legionary calls desertion.

In every barrack-room there hung unspeakably ghastly photographs of the mangled bodies of Legionaries who had fallen into the hands of the Arabs and been tortured by their women. He had himself seen wretched deserters dragged back by Goums,[#] a ma.s.s of rags, filth, blood and bruises; their manacled hands fastened to the end of a rope attached to an Arab's saddle. Inasmuch as the captor got twenty-five francs for returning a deserter, alive or dead, he merely tied the wounded, or starved and half-dead wretch to the end of a rope and galloped with him to the nearest outpost or barracks. When the Roumi[#] could no longer run, he was quite welcome to fall and be dragged.

[#] Arab gens d'armes.

[#] White man.

Rupert had also gathered a fairly accurate idea of the conditions of life--if "life" it can be called--in the Penal Battalions.

Yes, on the whole, desertion from the Legion would be something in the nature of an adventure, when one considered the difficulties, risks, and dangers, which militated against success, and the nature of the punishment which attended upon failure. No wonder that desertion was regarded by all and sundry as being a feat of courage, skill and endurance to which attached no slightest stigma of disgrace! One gathered that most men "made the promenade" at some time or other--generally under the influence of _le cafard_ in some terrible Southern desert-station, and were dealt with more or less leniently (provided they lost no articles of their kit) in view of the fact that successful desertion from such places was utterly impossible, and only attempted by them "while of unsound mind." Only once or twice, in the whole history of the Legion, had a man got clear away, obtained a camel, and, by some miracle of luck, courage and endurance, escaped death at the hands of the Arabs, thirst, hunger, and sunstroke, to reach the Moroccan border and take service with the Moors--who are the natural and hereditary enemies of the Touaregs and Bedouins.

Yes, he had begun to feel that he had certainly come to the end of a period of instruction and experience, and was in need of change to fresh fields and pastures new. Vegetating formed no part of his programme of life, which was far too short, in any case, for all there was to see and to do....

Sitting one night on his cot, and talking to the man for whom he now had a very genuine and warm affection, he remarked--

"Don't you get fed up with Depot life, Bull?"

"I have been fed up with life, Depot and otherwise, for over twenty years," was the reply.... "Don't forget that life here in Sidi is a great deal better than life in a desert station in the South. It is supportable anyhow; there--it simply isn't; and those who don't desert and die, go mad and die. The exceptions, who do neither, deteriorate horribly, and come away very different men.... Make the most of Sidi, my boy, while you are here, and remember that foreign service, when in Tonkin, Madagascar, or Western Africa, inevitably means fever and dysentery, and generally broken health for life.... Moreover, Algeria is the only part of the French colonial possessions in which the climate lets one enjoy one's pipe."